Whispers and Wishes
by J. E. Talveran
Summary: The Moorlands had not been the only faery realm the Kingdom had hungered for; but they had dug too deep and wanted too much and all of it was now Aurora's burden to bear. [Eventual Malora]
1. Chapter 1

The fire had eaten through the Throne Room and left nothing but the scorched iron, black as the smoke-drenched night, in it's wake. The gathering within the space itself was small and awkward, both sides glared at their opposites and wondered who would be the first to strike up the feud for the countless time.

For the Kingdom, the Captain of the Guard stood over the lifeless body of the King; behind him were several guards and the few advisers that Stefan had commanded to remain within the iron walls to see his eventual triumph over the Moorlands. Prince Philip stood by awkwardly, and looked as out of place as Maleficent herself felt.

For the Moorlands, Maleficent stood with her back towards the shattered window, and her body tense and ill-at-ease with the iron walls all about her. Diaval wore his raven-shape, the nature of his true form allowed him to recover from the battle barely an hour past. The three pixies hovered just out of reach, eyes wide and sad as the gravity of the situation affected even their tiny minds.

Only the Princess Aurora remained alone. She stood within the No-Man's Land between the two sides, her fingers curled and unfurled at her sides. She had watched Maleficent carry Stefan's body back within the castle, the man stripped from the iron monster, and now she stared at a father she had dreamed about but would never know.

There's an itch in Maleficent's body. It demanded she stride down the steps, step over the fragments of a kingdom, and steal the girl away before any more harm could befall her. She ignored it, shoved it deep within her until it's an ache in her bones. She wasn't even sure she was the right person to offer comfort. Not for this. She bristled when Prince Philip is the first one to break from the stand off and approach Aurora but does nothing to stop it. Why should she when it was her anger and her grief and her hatred that had brought everyone to this exact moment?

Prince Philip went towards Aurora as one would a spooked horse, hands steady and spread out wide and low, to show that no harm was meant; no trickery would be brought down sudden. He spoke to her with a voice softer than the breeze that rustled through the Moorlands at night and he made it almost to her side when she finally responded.

She turned, not toward him, but to Maleficent, blue eyes eerily luminescent in the dark and asked very simply: "I want to go home now."

Only then, Maleficent gave in. She took the steps down toward Aurora without thought and her arms opened wide, not as a sign of peace, but an offer of security. She didn't flinch when Aurora met her halfway, body thrown haphazardly against the faery. Maleficent's hands steadied the Princess, and she tried her hardest to ignore the trembling that she felt underneath her hands. She lifted her gaze to meet the Guard Captain's own, dared him to speak out against such vulnerability.

The man will forever be scarred from this night, it's visible in the way the skin is raw and ragged along the strong curve of his cheek, and in the way his body is curved inward upon itself, broken in ways Maleficent could not understand. Still, there's a wisdom in his eyes as he only granted her a nod in return before addressing his men.

"We will give the Princess the space and time she needs to mourn her father." The unspoken acknowledgement being that when the period of mourning was done, the affairs of state would be addressed was something Maleficent could agree upon. He gestured for the advisers to back away; that this gathering was concluded.

Truthfully, the protest of not only what had happened, but what was happening now should have sparked into a frenzy, but the advisers only murmured agreement and offered platitudes to Aurora, well-wishes and condolences that meant nothing.

Only Prince Philip lingered on, hands twisted nervously before him. Maleficent didn't give him the notice that he probably deserved, but that thought was banished when Aurora spoken her wish. She wanted to go home, and so, home they would travel.

Diaval stirred on the perch of wood and steel he'd claimed and clacked his beak questioningly. Would she need his services to carry Aurora? Maleficent shook her head, and unfurled her wings. Already she could feel the way they bristled and moved, eager to see flight once again. She had told Aurora that they were strong, and never faltered, and she had no reason to think they would do so now when she had need of them most.

"Hold tight, Beastie," she commanded Aurora, and waited until the Princess' arms were snug at her waist, cupped underneath the joining of her wings until she grasped tighter in return and pushed from the steps. Aurora instinctively gripped tighter but she turned her head towards the outside, so she could watch the flight and Maleficent could not help but feel pride in the girl's courage.

The flight was wonderful and awkward all at once. Maleficent, as agile as she had been once, was not used to carrying someone along with her, and the angle of her body to keep Aurora close and still have the grace to fly was one that left her shoulders aching.

She couldn't complain. Not when it was her body that protested the return of flight and the weight of her wings that threw her off-balance. Still, when her feet touched the moss at the roots of the Rowan tree that was her sanctuary, she was relieved and surprised that the travel went as smooth as it had. Aurora was a little shaken up; she'd toppled over as soon as Maleficent had let go, but the Princess' cheeks are red with the cold and her eyes were lit up with the same wonder Maleficent felt whenever she took to the air. For a moment or two, the grief was banished, but it returned soon enough with the retreat of excitement and arrival of exhaustion.

"Come on," Maleficent tugged carefully, maneuvered the girl from her spot on the moss and up into the tree. The branches are wide and secure, and within the very center formed a haven to rest one's weary head upon. It is here that Maleficent guided Aurora, and it is here that she took watch nearby. With Diaval settled upon his roost, and the Princess quick to fall into the oblivion that sleep could bring, Maleficent found herself awake long after the moon had climbed high into the sky. The day repeated in her mind again and again, and her thoughts went further back, to a boy who had once given up something precious just to hold her hand.

It was when the first rays of dawn lanced gold and pink over the eastern sky did Maleficent finally succumb to sleep herself.


	2. Chapter 2

The light that cascaded down through the leaves was a burnished gold that glittered as it chased away the dew that clung to the leaves of the rowan tree. It's the brush of her namesake, warm and gentle against her cheeks, that stirred Aurora from her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open to see the rustling branches and the shadows dancing along her body like dancers in perfect step. She's confused, but only until the rich scent of the Moorlands greets her, and she cannot help but find herself sinking back into the bough of the tree.

She watched the clouds first, catching glimpses of their pink and yellow underbellies as the sun crept into the sky before her attention drifted closer to the earth. Next, it was the tree and the ornaments within it that steal her notice. There are dolls crafted of leaves and twigs tucked reverently away into knotholes worn old by time and exposure; and necklaces woven from natural materials that gleam as they refract the sunlight. Tucked into an outstretched limb is a nest, a motley collection of twigs and shiny objects, and above that …

"Pretty Bird," Aurora smiles at Diaval's soft chirrup. The raven is perched above the nest, claws secure on a sturdy offshoot. He stretches out his wings, waking up to greet the day just as she did, and Aurora can see the pattern of fire that singed through the feathers. It had to have hurt, but Diaval's little noises are as cheerful as they'd been every time he'd woken her in the morning.

Diaval ducked his head over a shoulder, averting attention from her towards feather maintenance, and Aurora resumes her quiet observation. She'd never woken up in the Moorland before, even when she'd been exhausted and laid her head down for a nap as she listened to the quiet rhythm of Maleficent's voice. She'd always woken in her bedroom and with the scent of the Moorlands faint on the winds. How Maleficent had never been caught by her aunts was a mystery that Aurora would ask about one day.

That day wasn't today, though.

Aurora reached down to push the blankets covering her off to a side and stopped when she encountered resistance; and feathers. She looked to see that she'd been covered by brown feathers so rich in color and hue that they shimmered black and gold and all the colors of autumn caught within the dying light of an afternoon. She carefully reached out a hand to trail her fingers over the largest of the flight feathers, and marveled at the texture. It's only when her gaze travels the length of the feathers that she realize what they were, and to whom they belonged.

Maleficent was curled within a forked branch, her wings slackened from sleep and her body draped against the rowan wood as if she'd always known it's grasp during slumber. She wore the black tunic still, but despite the severity of the outfit, looked to be finally at a moment's peace. Aurora extracted the wing from across her, then laid it back upon the hammock she'd awoken in.

It didn't take long before she came to the conclusion that this tree was the heart of Maleficent's own home, and for a spell, Aurora felt like an intruder. Diaval's constant noise drew her back from her insecurity, and he hopped closer to offer her a far better morning greeting.

She responded by her stomach, the growling demand for food quickly causing her cheeks to flare red and Diaval to caw his laughter. Her eyes shift guilty towards Maleficent, but the faery remained asleep.

"I suppose it's my turn to gather the berries and hazelnuts for breakfast, isn't it?" She murmured to Diaval, and he only bobbed his head in return, taking flight to swoop out of the tree and guide her to exactly where she could find breakfast.

Aurora is not so quick to climb out, but she is surefooted from years of living in the forest and climbing the stately pine and oak trees and her feet touch the moss that covers the ground and grows over the roots. She looked upward at the shadow of wings, taking this slice of eternity for herself before she answered the call for food and freshening up.

The morning chased the night away completely when Aurora and Diaval finish up the fruit of their labors, the berries sweet on Aurora's tongue and the hazelnuts stored in her pockets for when she grows hungry again. Now the deneizens of the Moorlands have been told of her arrival. The ungainly and rotund wallerbogs clambered through the muck of the nearby creek to offer her grunting greetings. After them were the two hedgehog faeries that she'd befriended, and after them were the glimmering sprites that had yet to sleep for they'd wanted to see the Princess once again.

With the Moorland Folk crowded around her, Aurora felt the previous day banished to the far reaches of her mind and she was grateful to not be alone with her thoughts. Not before she could talk with Maleficent without the tension of the castle and the curse. With Diaval keeping a close eye, Aurora lost herself in the carefree frolicking of the faerie creatures and allowed them to steal the dark thoughts from her mind until she was as happy as she'd been when Maleficent had first offered her a home here.

She'd travelled along the muddy banks with the wallerbogs as they pointed out the ways they were cultivating a new course for the stream to allow for the bright silver flowers to bloom under the watchful care of the flower faeries. She'd ducked over the great roots and wound through the mushrooms after the hedgehog pair in a delightful game of hide and seek.

It was when the sun was high and the day was as blue as the shell of a robin's egg when Aurora spied the first sentry moving at the edge of the grove that she'd returned to. The tall, treelike creatures moved with unnatural quietness, and they would watch her with sightless eyes. She remembered Maleficent introducing her to one such Sentry, one of the oldest of the Border Guards with his branches shaped like the antlers of the mightiest of stags. Balthazar she'd called him, but as Aurora watched the two who patrol, she doesn't recognize them.

Diaval must have, for he flies away from her and lands on a stump near the patrol to caw animatedly with them. They stop and return conversation in their own guttural language. With Diaval occupied and Maleficent still asleep, Aurora brushed off her dress and left for one of the high cliffs she'd been shown a few weeks prior.

The cliff overlooked much of the western Moorlands, and Aurora's sight could go beyond the Wall of Thorns towards the black shadow that was the castle. Her castle. She'd spent years staring at it when she was younger and wondering what it would have been like to visit. Now, though, her arms curled tight about her knees, drawing them close, and she couldn't help but wish she'd never gone to ask her Aunties about leaving the cottage.

Aurora could only remember once before had she ever felt this clawing sense of … she couldn't put a name to the sensation, but knew that it rolled in her belly like an iron stone and left her thoughts twisting over themselves again and again until there was nothing left but the terrible what-if's and could-have-beens. The last time had been when Aunt Knotgrass had told her of her parents death, and she'd spent that very night staring out the window of her bedroom and wishing the stupidest of wishes that they'd been lying. That her parents were just off on a grand adventure, or a dangerous mission and would come for Aurora when they could.

She understood now that she'd already grieved for the man she'd considered calling father on that long-ago night; when his face had been a mystery and his gruff exterior was her imagining of how a father should be. She could not mourn the King in the Castle, for he was a stranger to her, and while she felt sorrow at his death; it didn't eat at her now the way that Auntie Knotgrass' tale had clawed at her back then.

She felt worse at the lack of grief in her thoughts, and the guilt was something that she couldn't shake away until she'd recited the old nursery rhymes that Auntie Flittle enjoyed singing. Each one she went over, singing them soft at first, and then loud enough when she couldn't keep the tears silent, and they came with shoulder-shaking sobs. Her voice become rough as she sang to say goodbye to her childhood; the one she'd dreamed of, and the one she'd had. She sang loud to cover her heartbreak at the knowledge that her parents truly had gone on a grand adventure; one they would never return from and one she wouldn't follow for a very long time.

Aurora sang until her voice was little more than a whisper and the tears were nothing more than hiccups. Alone upon the clifftop, she said her goodbyes to the girl she had been, knowing that whatever yesterday had wrought would mean never returning to the sunlit afternoons where her biggest care was the idea of pleading for another hour or several within the Moorlands. Her eyes felt itchy and sore, and her stomach hurt, but she could stare at the world without the dark clouds in her mind.

Movement along the Thorn Wall catches her eye, and she watched with curiosity as a large winged figure rose up high over the towering plants. Though she'd never seen that silhouette, she knew who it was immediately.

Maleficent had awoken.


	3. Chapter 3

Even when the nights were spent exploring the Moorlands through Aurora's inquistive gaze, Maleficent had never slept long after the dawn broke. Even when those nights had ended with the dawn breaking; sleep was just something that was unobtainable for the faery. So when she woke and felt the sunlight warming her from the west, she was puzzled.

For a brief flash of terror, she wondered if she'd been drugged once again, but that thought disappeared when she jerked upright and the unexpected weight of her wings dragged her back against the Rowan Tree. They were heavier than she remembered, and they were softer than her fingers remembered, and they were as whole as the night before that terrible, horrible morning.

Time travelled quietly around her as she stayed within the crooked branch of the Rowan until Diaval's shadow swept over her face and blocked the sun. She opened her eyes to him shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and with a wave of her hand …

He'd grown used to her need to change him while he was mid-step, or just before a landing. He equated it to the nature of faeries and their need for mischief. This transformation was one of the nicer ones and he'd wound up crouched on the branch. He fell into the tree beside her and just smiled.

"What?"

"Nothing, I'm just glad you are awake." He held out a handful of hazelnuts and blacknuts for her, and she took them with quiet gratitude. She crunched down on the first, and her brow arched at his still-present smile.

"I thought ravens sought their mates in the Springtime?" She inquired, after taking several seconds to work the right amount of indifference into her question. She didn't want to offend one of her oldest companions, but she'd heard things about how ravens acted.

Diaval gave her a look so quizzical that she cannot resist the twitch of her lips into a lightning-quick smirk. "We do - what does that have to do with anything?"

Maleficent's brow remained arched. He continued to stare at her until she deliberately, and carefully lifted a hazelnut up to her lips. The way Diaval's expression morphed from confused to affronted is one that Maleficent cannot school herself for, and so she grinned widely as he sputtered in protest.

"I'm kidding."

"You know I have a hard time telling if you're pulling my tailfeathers!"

"It was funny."

"It is not funny. Mating Season is a serious business, not a joke." He really did look unamused, so she took pity on him. She nodded her head in apology and it took him staring at her until she started to feel guilt, and that was a feeling that crawled down her neck and spine like a spider and she didn't enjoy it. Not before when he'd guilted her in picking up a young Aurora, and not when he guilted her into the chance for Prince Philip and True Love's Kiss.

"I will not make light of it again," she promised. Diaval seemed satisfied for his smile returned and he went back to watching her eat hazelnuts. She could stand it for all of a minute. "Where is the little beastie?"

"Aurora, you mean?" He gestured behind him, up toward the high cliffs that gave a magnificent overlook to the Moorlands and the lands beyond the boundary stores. "Up there, but I think she needs some time to herself."

Maleficent nodded. That she could understand. She'd allow the Princess time to grieve as humans would … but what to do in the meantime? Her gaze raked along the Moorlands from her own tree, and she caught herself averting it several times from the Wall of Thorns. With Stefan dead and Aurora the obvious successor, was the Wall necessary anymore?

"Diaval."

"Mistress?" He looked up.

She gestured towards the Wall. "What do you think?"

He twisted in his seat and peered at the Wall of Thorns with a furrowed brow. "Birchalin mentioned that he was looking forward to Patrolling once more. I think they miss the marshlands at the border."

"It is where they are born and where they rest their dead," Maleficent said, her voice quiet as she watched Diaval watch the Wall. "I will tear it down so they can have their land returned to them."

"And … the human kingdom?" Diaval glanced back her way.

"Is Aurora's, and she is not her father's daughter." There's iron in her voice and it shocked her. She had thought trust lost forever when her wings …

They shift restless with her emotions, and she wanted to leave the conversation. Escape into the clouds was now possible once again but Diaval is one of her oldest companions and she cannot leave before she spoke aloud one of the many thoughts that had kept her awake. She fiddled with the torn hem of the dark tunic she wore and when Diaval fidgeted with the expectation to be turned into a bird, she finally blurts it out.

"You saved my life."

Diaval's restlessness stopped. He cocked his head toward her, eyes bright and black even in the shadow of the branches around them. "Mistress?"

"Maleficent." She said. "You have earned the right to call me by my name."

Diaval nodded, but frowned. "Why?"

"I just told you, and I don't repeat myself -"

"Are you releasing me?" Diaval asked suddenly, surging against the wind and the branches until he is at her knee and staring at her with those very-same eyes. "Mist-"

"Maleficent." Her voice is stronger. The iron audible underneath the lilting syllables.

"Maleficent." It sounded awkward on his tongue and he grimaced with the name. "Why am I allowed to speak your name when Mistress has suited our friendship for seventeen years?"

"Is that what you considered this? A friendship? You were my servant."

"I am your servant, but I am your friend too." He reached out, brazen as the sun, and grabbed at her hand. His was coarse underneath her fingers, skin scarred with the imprints of feathers. "And if you are releasing me from the title of servant I would like to remain here with the title of friend."

Quiet descended upon them and it broke when Maleficent took that hand over her own and squeezed. She couldn't convey in words what she wanted to, so she hoped the gesture was enough. It must have been, for Diaval smiled and leaned back and that, it seemed, was that.

"If you grant me my wings, I will fly to the castle and listen for news. We should at least keep an ear out on the humans."

"Into a bird."

Diaval's wings, for the first time, were not painful to watch for the first time in their entire companionship, and her gaze lingered on his form until the clouds swallowed it whole.

Alone, she huddled in the tree to regain the composure she'd built over seventeen years, carefully dressing herself in the neutral tones of the earth, shedding the black of her vengeance; and when it was complete, she climbed to her feet and dropped from the tree in a flurry of motion that her body remembered as if it'd never stopped.

The wind rushed to greet her, and it works through her feathers and along her robes. It was an old friend, eager to catch up with her and uncaring that she'd been gone for so long. The phantom of her scars twinged but vanished when her wings pumped and lifted her from the dive and out into the warm afternoon air that raised her high and higher. She didn't break the clouds, didn't yet dare to push through that mist. Her heart and body were still heavy with grief and she knew that she couldn't bear that final crest into the heavens until that weight was lifted.

She flew towards the Wall of Thorns and hovered between two of the standing stones. She scanned the thorns beneath her, trying to pick out the right spot to begin the unweaving magic. Back and forth, she felt like a pixie flitting among the flowers and she knew she was stalling. She wanted to enjoy the flight for what it meant to her, but she could no longer think only of herself.

There was Diaval.

There was Aurora.

The Wall of Thorns unravels from the point directly beneath her, and disappeared wherever her shadow passed over. Back and forth, her wings stretch far and her magic called deep under the ground. The time for such defense was over and the land had done it's duty.

It took much of her power, but the sun crept down into the eastern mountains and illuminated the high peaks of the cliffs. One such cliff held the presence of a girl, and the stare of that girl was a palpable knowledge. When the last of the thorns withdrew under the soil, Maleficent finally banked towards the cliff.

She landed with a soft 'wuff' of air, and it is not the most graceful she's ever been, but Aurora smiled and went to her feet at Maleficent's arrival. The faery felt nervous, and it showed in the way that her wings settled against her back, then rose up, then settled once again. The years of learning to be still, to have control seemed wasted when her wings didn't care to understand the importance behind such lessons.

But the look of glee on Aurora's face is enough to silence her internal reprimand. The Princess' eyes are red-rimmed, and it doesn't take the keen sight of a faery to see the dried tears on the girl's cheeks. Still, Aurora has not shied away from her and that is something that is quite wonderful.

"You took down the Wall." Aurora sounded as nervous as she did. "Why?"

"It was no longer needed." Maleficent answered. She strode to the tree that sheltered the clifftop and nestled herself upon the roots there. She heard Aurora follow, but the Princess doesn't join her in sitting. Instead, Aurora moved past her and above her, climbing up onto a limb just above Maleficent. The pair stared out over the oncoming night together and the conversation flowed like a river between them. There were eddies of silence and quick, fast-flowing rapids where the words tumbled over and over.

Maleficent spoke more, and Aurora listened as the faery told her of the goodness that had once filled King Stefan's heart. She told the girl of a boy who had once aided her in calming a fawn trapped in the mire after a sudden spring storm, and she told the girl of a young man who had had dreams that once were as bright and wonderful as the Moors that they loved.

Aurora listened as Maleficent spoke of a time before the dark depths of ambition had seized the king, and then she listened more when Maleficent spoke of the beauty and good nature of Aurora's mother. "I had only met her that once," she said, eyes intent on the moon that illuminated the castle. "She had seemed kind."

Aurora moved down from the branches as the conversation went on into the early twilight, until she tucked herself between the rough bark of the tree and the woven fabric of Maleficent's robes. The princess does not duck away when powerful wings unfurl and settle around the pair to protect them from the chill of the night.

When Maleficent's words have stopped falling, and the silence around them is a comforting one, Aurora is the next to speak. Revealing her kind heart, she forgave Maleficent, and then forgave her again - loud enough that it drowned out the faery's protest.

They come to another eddy of silence, and in the lapse of words, Aurora turned herself into that wing - and only after a hesitant nod from Maleficent, she ran her fingers over the feathers for the second time.

"I have been told that I have my mother's wings," Maleficent watched her. "She died when I was very young. I can't remember her voice, or how she looked, but I remember her wings. They would lift over us when the rains came, and she would tuck me beneath them when the night fell over the Moors."

"What happened? To them?" Aurora lifted her head, the question as gently given as one could ever ask such a thing.

"They died protecting the Moorlands when King Henry had first attempted to claim them." Maleficent answered as precise as she could manage without inflicting emotion into the words. It was not Aurora's fault that her lineage was stricken with the greed and violence of her ancestors.

"He was my grandfather, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

Aurora lowered her chin, tucked herself further together underneath the shelter of Maleficent's wing, and scowled at the ground. "So he was as bad as my father."

" … your father never struck against the Moors until after the Curse."

Aurora lifted her eyes, and the moonlight reflected within them. It was not the first time Maleficent discovered that Knotgrass' wish had truly blossomed in Aurora's blood, but it was an acknowledgement the same way one looked at the sunset and saw the glory of nature painted over the sky. Maleficent was one of the fair folk; beauty was appreciated wherever it lay.

"So, it was the Kingdom that changed him?" Aurora broke the gaze, looking back out once again.

"I don't know. I only took the crown of the Moors so the land would listen to my commands. We are not a people used to the rule of a king or a queen, so I can only tell you that my own darkness was fueled by a pain so unimaginable that I hope you never once experience it in all of your days."

Aurora smiled again. "You promised to protect me as long as you live, I think I will never have to worry about that."

Maleficent paused. Considered Aurora, then felt a little exposed. "You were sleeping, how could you…?"

"I just knew. It is why I am forgiving you though you have never asked for it." Aurora canted her head until her cheek rested against Maleficent's shoulder. She seemed to sense the faery growing uncomfortable, for the subject changed. "Where is Diaval?"

And it was a subject change that made Maleficent relieved, and a little curious as to the gift Thistlewit had bestowed upon Aurora. "The Castle. He is listening for what they plan to do."

"And if I don't want to do what they plan to do?" Aurora pulled away only enough that she could see Maleficent's eyes as the faery answered.

"We will cross that bridge when we reach it; but you will not have to make that choice now." or for a while yet to come." Maleficent reached out with both an arm and a wing to carefully bring Aurora back. "Tonight and for the next few days, you are free of any expectations, I promise you."

Aurora lowered herself back against Maleficent's side, and the two of them fell once again into a comforting silence as they waited the return of Diaval and the news he would bring.


	4. Chapter 4

Aurora was the picture of poise and grace, positioned in the center of the dais. The sunlight cascaded down and around her, a resplendent cloak of gold that was the envy of every kingdom known upon the various maps and charts. Upon her head, the crown was heavy but it was a weight she'd grown accustomed to over the long years.

In front of her, pushed down upon his knees and his eyes filled with equal measures of terror and worship, the emissary of the Jade Empire begged for, not his life, but for Aurora to reconsider the offer of tribute in lieu of the conquest three seasons in the making. His hands glittered and shone with the fabled stone of his land, but what use was the trinkets of man when the Moorlands provided glory and wealth beyond human imagining.

She looked to her advisers for suggestions. They were torn between continuing the motions for war and taking the tribute. Her father, in particular, wanted to push forward with the conquest because if they merely took without a show of effort, it could be seen as weakness or mercy later on.

It is later, in the war room, that a contemplative moment in front of the horns that serve as her own personal trophy, that she found she agreed with him. And when that proud gleam glinted in his eye, she knew she'd made the right choice.

It is not much later after that when Aurora jerked upright and found herself confined underneath the heavy weight of wings and the cool, refreshing air of the Moors was instead sharp and icy as she sucked it down into her lungs. She pushed and struggled, and it took a second or two, but the wing rose away like a curtain.

Aurora dove forward and caught herself on her knees, one hand braced against a root as she gasped and exhaled. She sputtered and shivered and tried to forget the sound of screams and the painful thrum of iron.

The faery behind her took a little longer in waking up, or she'd been awake all along; because she can feel Maleficent's eyes upon her back and she could picture the look of anguish and indecision on the woman's face as she fretted on how to help. There was the movement of air and fabric, and Aurora can picture it crystal-clear in her mind as Maleficent stretched out a hand and pulled it back all in one motion.

She must still remember the vehemence Aurora directed at her when she'd revealed the truth two days prior. Aurora did. Remembered vividly that she'd called Maleficent evil when she'd not yet understood the depth and weight of such a title.

"Aurora." Maleficent's voice is pained. "Aurora, what is it?"

Aurora wondered, bitterly, if Flittle's wish for her to never be blue meant that it would only banish the melancholy times, because Aurora did not think she could describe the mix of despair and fear and guilt as anything but black.

"What if I hadn't of snuck out of the room?" She asked, more out loud than to Maleficent behind her. "What if Father had greeted me the way I'd always dreamed of? What if —"

"There are so many what ifs that you will make yourself sick with the thought of them all." Maleficent still has not touched her and Aurora is at once grateful and spiteful for it. She's unsure if she'd rather welcome the touch of the faery woman, or duck away because the dream is still pressed at the very edge of her unconsciousness. "Now, tell me a little of what troubles you and let us see if we cannot bring a smile back to your lips before the dawn."

Aurora shook her head. Stopped. Shivered. Looked out at the castle barely visible in the fog of the late night. "Did Diaval come back?"

"No."

"Do you think he's all right?"

"Yes."

Aurora frowned. "Are you saying that because you want me to feel better?"

"… yes."

Aurora chuckled. She couldn't help it. She turned and Maleficent wore a displeased expression. She reached up with her free hand and wiped at her eyes. She sniffled once and then turned around to sit opposite of Maleficent, who had quickly lost the displeased look in favor of concern. "I want to say this sitting here… and then …" she took a breath for courage. Maleficent had not lied to her when it mattered. Aurora wouldn't — couldn't not do the same. "And then if you still want to call me Beastie and want me here —"

"Beastie," Maleficent interrupted. "I did not fight through a maze of Iron and wake you from a powerful curse just to suddenly despise you for a simple dream." She smiled, but reassuring was not a look Maleficent had worn in a very long time.

"This dream you might."

Maleficent arched a brow at the sullen challenge. "Try me."

Aurora worried at her lower lip with her teeth. She rested her chin on her knees and stared up into the clouds that obscured the stars. "I dreamt that I'd become a Queen."

"That doesn't sound so terrible that you'd wake up in a fright about it."

"A Queen like my Father was King." Aurora lowered her gaze and wished for the countless time that Maleficent was not so talented in schooling her face into that neutral mask. "I'd conquered the Moors, and I'd conquered other lands. I took and I took and no one denied me because they loved me."

"Aurora —"

"Let me finish! Please."

Maleficent held her tongue and gestured for Aurora to continue.

"I was everything you said my father became and —- and I was greedy and selfish and cruel and violent and no one could stop me because why would they? They loved me. Beloved by All."

"Aurora."

Aurora shook her head violently. "I'm not at the… at the worst part." She lowered her head and focused upon Maleficent. "The worst part was I'd taken a trophy from the Moors. Like … like my father." She watched Maleficent's wings furl tight against her back, then carefully spread once again, slow as the opening of a flower. "Your … horns."

"My …horns?" Maleficent reached a hand up and ran the fingers along the roughness of the horns that curled from the top of her head. "Why?"

"I'm not used to you with wings, I suppose."

Maleficent's laugh was mirthless. She broke the stare, her focus gravitating beyond Aurora. "That was your dream then?" Aurora nodded. "And it is what woke you so terribly?" Aurora nodded again, and hated that all she could do was nod as an answer. Maleficent sighed, then spread one wing out, stretching it to the side. The feathers were dark and the night's mist had left speckles of dew upon them. She lowered her head back against the trunk of the tree and her eyes closed.

"Godmother?"

"I am tired from yesterday's flight because I feel like I have gained far too much weight eating all of those berries you demanded every evening and my wings are not used to such decadent meals."

"…Godmother?"

"The last time I invoked so much magic was the night I tried to revoke your curse, and it is exhausting unweaving spells."

Aurora frowned. That was not an answer either, and the wing was still spread in an inviting manner. At the silence, Maleficent cracked open an eye and gave her a dreadful look.

"It is also cold for a summer's night and you, Beastie, are quite warm."

"You're not… but my dream—"

"Was a dream, Aurora, and nothing more." Maleficent's voice softens the blow of the words. "You are not your father's daughter and you never will be."

Aurora didn't feel as certain and she balked halfway through the walk back to Maleficent's side. "You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." Maleficent shut her eyes, the matter finished in her mind.

"How?"

"Because I am your Fairy Godmother and we just know these things." Maleficent cracked open that eye again, and Aurora saw the gleam of gold there that revealed underneath the ill-tempered mannerisms, Maleficent was not angry. Tired, perhaps, but not angry.

Aurora smiled and felt a little of that weight leave her stomach as she scrambled back to where she'd been. The wing settled back upon her like a curtain, and she laughed now, carefully pushing at the joint until her head popped over the feathers. "I can't breathe when you do that!"

Maleficent's body shook softly with silent laughter, but her tone was indifferent. "Are you sure?" The wing rose up and covered Aurora again. "Oh, how dreadful. It seems they're still weak." The wing went slack and Aurora yelped when that weight fell upon her. Feathers and laughter surrounded her.

"They are not!" Aurora giggled, and desperately tried to shove the wing up and away. She managed to hold it above her hand, arms straight.

"How would you know? They're not your wings." Maleficent sniffed, haughty. "Now, be a good Beastie and stay just like that, you'll keep the dew off of us."

"Hmph." Aurora let go and the wing rustled in the breeze before coming down feather soft around her. She tried to fix Maleficent with the sternest of glares she could muster, but the faery was immune. Or asleep.

Soon, Aurora was too, and whatever dreams followed her into that slumber did not disturb her for the remainder of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

Diaval's arrival woke Maleficent. She'd been drifting close to wakefulness for a little while now, and only refused to climb that last edge of slumber unless it was needed, and the return of the raven was enough to justify pulling out of that dreamlike state with reluctance. She was warm, felt at ease, and Aurora had finally slipped into a restful sleep that was completely deserved and needed. Still, time did not stop for anyone, not even the timeless inhabitants of the Moorlands, so as the day broke with the overcast of clouds, so too did Maleficent find herself roused with it.

"Into a Man," she greeted the raven after he'd landed upon the damp grass. She watched him transform and studied his face for any sign of the news he'd brought, or why it had took him nearly a day. Her eyes raked his form for new bruises, or wounds but found nothing.

Diaval peered at the tree. "Why are you not at your nest?"

"It is not a nest." That was an argument they'd run ragged over the years but no matter how many times Maleficent reminded the raven that her home was a proper Great Tree, he called it a nest; and then proceeded to build a nest in it, claiming that as her wings, it was his home as much as hers.

"It is a nest. You sleep there, you are safe there, and one day you will raise a hatchling there." He twisted around to spy the Rowan Tree from where they sat, but the mist and fog was thick that morning and made it appear as if the cliff they were on was one of a few points of land left in an ocean of clouds. "I will raise more hatchlings there too one day."

"What?"

Diaval glanced her way and pretended he didn't notice the incredulity of her tone. "In time, when I have talked with a she-raven who is willing to take upon the same enchantment you have bestowed upon me. I'd like to hope our chicks will have the magic in their bones that they will know how to change with their own thoughts." He smiled towards the mop of golden curls that was the slumbering princess, the subject done for now. "How is she?"

"She had a rather frightful nightmare, and I find myself hoping that Flittle is strong enough with magic that her silly little wish quickens the trauma of her birthday into an unpleasant memory and nothing more." Maleficent untucked her wing enough to allow herself a moment to brush a stray curl back behind Aurora's ear. "Speaking of those three, do you know what Thistlewit's wish was? I'd left before she'd done it, and you know they must have tried something to break the curse themselves."

Diaval shook his head.

"Shame. That means I'll have to talk to the little halfwit and it takes a lifetime to get them to answer anything properly." Maleficent kept her gaze on Aurora and turned the conversation towards more pressing matters. "How are things over there?"

"It's hard to say. It's still practically impenetrable save for the window you shattered, but the guards are leery of any ravens or crows, so I had to wait until nightfall to slip in, and then escape before morning. I was warned by the mated pair who used to use one of the undersides of a tower roof that my kind is not particularly welcomed right now."

Maleficent shrugged. It had been a desperate decision to change Diaval's shape into something that had long since left the world for whatever lay beyond even Maleficent's awareness, but it had saved Aurora.

"The Captain of the Guard is maintaining order, it looks like; and the human council is arranging the funeral for the king in two days time as is custom for them."

"What are they saying about Aurora?"

Diaval scrunched up his nose as he tried to recall what he'd seen and overheard. "She's not disinherited, if that's your concern. Apparently it is …proper… for children to spend time in seclusion after the death of a parent so the Captain is using that as the excuse to keep the common humans calm. I did not sense any spark of dissent or disagreement with the succession. Aurora's bloodline is royal, and I believe that means something with humans?"

"It does."

"I would expect a visit from the Captain soon, though because they spoke of ways to approach the Moors without "incurring the wrath of the Fair Folk's Queen" … I think it would be a good thing to meet with him." He fidgeted under Maleficent's curious look. "We want peace now, right?"

"…yes." She knew she sounded at odds with that answer, and she felt at odds with it because one simply did not wipe away seventeen years of bitterness, hatred, and revenge in less than a week, yet she had to try. She had promised Aurora to keep her safe all of her days, and she could not do that if the Kingdom and the Moorlands were once again at war. "Yes, we should try for peace."

"Then it would be a gesture of good will and if we meet them beyond the boundary markers they won't step into the Moors."

"I have not interacted with a human who is not Beastie for a very long time. I don't think I would be the best emissary, Diaval."

"Then grant me this shape and let me speak for you." He straightened himself before her, standing like she'd seen human soldiers at attention once, long ago. "Let me speak for you, Mis… Maleficent. Nothing formal. Just ….lines of communication between territories. I once brokered a truce between a great owl and my father for a winter when the food was scarce and the winds were too terrible for any bird to fly for long."

Maleficent remembered that winter. She'd been just shy of a decade, with her wings still ungainly and her world contained solely within the boundary markers of the Moors. She'd been grateful for the massive wings she'd been born with, for the feathers had proven excellent insulation against the bitter cold and it was the summer afterwards that she'd finally mastered flying without it looking as awkward as a fledgling's first flight.

Diaval tilted his head to one side, and the birdlike movement drug Maleficent away from the past. "It's my sister's territory now, actually. Well, her and her mate's. Or maybe my youngest brother because he didn't seem the type to spend years in a roost like proper ravens do. He began courting this one girl before his second summer — far too young if you ask me."

"You don't know?"

"We are very territorial, and once we reach a certain age … well … birds like things settled and understood and … it has been a very long time since I was just a raven, Maleficent. I wouldn't really belong with her, or him, or with a roost."

Maleficent frowned, and did not like the feeling of remorse that was within her. There were times she wished she'd been born a flower pixie so her emotions would be shallow and few, not this array of colors that tinted her world every time they rose up. "I did not intend —"

"Neither do I believe you did, but here we are and to worry about the past is to drop a snake in the nest. Only causes trouble and you lose an egg or three." Diaval grinned, and she could sense nothing false about him. He stared at her with the same gaze he'd used whenever he was concerned for her.

She averted herself, feigned interest in the way the grass rippled with the wind. She collected herself until she could look at Diaval once again without losing all composure entirely. Her words started soft and unsure for she was not used to being kind. "If … you do find yourself a she-raven who is willing to put up with your inability to be anything but annoying —" Even the grin he still kept was annoying. She pitied the bird that would be charmed by Diaval one day. " —-stop that. You are not as charming as you think you are."

"Yes, Maleficent."

"… " Her wings bristled, and she fixed him with one of her best glares. It worked on Border Guards and Pixies and Wallerbogs, but he kept grinning. Which was impossible because her glare worked on everything. Ravens included. "I don't like you."

"As long as you don't hate me."

"Hmph. As I was saying before you interrupted me, yes, the hatchlings you may have one day could be infused with the glamour that brings you between forms, but I cannot bestow it upon you directly. You were born a raven and I cannot change you into one of the shifting phoukas."

"Oh."

"However," Maleficent took a steadying breath. She had released him yesterday, and he had claimed to be her friend but how long would he want to stay nearby once she'd truly granted him his wings back? There was a coil of selfishness in her that wanted her to remain silent, and to not bestow such a gift upon him so he would always need to return. She crushes it down. "If you find me something sentimental to you, well…" she trailed off with a shrug of the wind not curled about Aurora.

Diaval leaned forward. "You would do that?"

"Have you not earned it?" Maleficent held up a hand when Diaval began to speak. "Do as I say, Diaval, if you wish to be now my emissary."

He closed his mouth, inclined his head, and took off in flight down to the Raven Tree when she murmured her incantation. As the gold of her magic left the air, Maleficent felt Aurora stir.

"There's going to be a funeral?" Aurora's eyes were still lidded with sleep, and she'd not moved from her position beyond that initial stretch.

"Yes, Diaval said it would be in two days time." Maleficent rested her head back against the tree and idly wondered if the sky would remain overcast, or if it would be broken up before the afternoon. "Would you like to go?"

"I don't know." She could feel Aurora's confusion as a tension throughout the girl's body. "Is that terrible of me?"

"No."

"Are you saying that because you can't see me as something terrible?"

"You are a terrible little beastie, does that count?"

"I don't think so. Would you go with me?"

"Yes." There was no sun to saturate her body with a warm lethargy, and while she could as a faery lounge within the center of the strongest tempest nature could ever muster, Aurora was not, and humans were not meant for exposure to the elements. So Maleficent carefully extracted herself, wings shifting and allowing the chilly morning into the warmth of the cocoon of feathers. "Come along, Aurora."

Aurora stretched a second time as Maleficent rose to her feet. She yawned and rubbed at her eyes, and Maleficent was struck by how young the girl still was. Aurora didn't move from her slouch against the tree, and gave the sudden loss of her feathery blanket a petulant stare.

"If you were a storm nix, I wouldn't mind leaving you up here all day, Beastie, but as you are not crafted from the lightning and rain, I suggest we retreat to the valley."

Aurora's eyes widened and she seemed to catch on to the day promising a less than sunny afternoon. She went to Maleficent's side, and then hesitated. "Am I to meet you at the bottom, then?"

"Hmm?" Maleficent had faced into the oncoming wind. It was a little more than a young gust, not fully grown into the gale it could be, but she'd spread her feathers out to catch the air all the same. "If you think that's best."

"How else am I going to get down?" Aurora inquired, and it sounded innocent. She stared at Maleficent's wings with such a wonder though, that the faery knew the question was asked for the sake of politeness.

"Hold on to me."

Aurora doesn't need to be told twice. She swept in under the grand wings and curled her arms tight to Maleficent's waist. She tucked her head once again so she could watch the flight from the security of the faery's arms.

"Shall I dive or glide down?" Maleficent could feel the thud of Aurora's heart against her own and she tightened her own arms about the girl. She knew her own preference.

"What would you do?" Aurora sounded bold in her arms and Maleficent grinned.

Her wings snapped straight out and she was certain in the embrace before she took that step forward. Aurora's breath caught in mid-exhale, and she squeezed tighter, but she didn't protest. Maleficent took that second step, and then the third.

Then she stepped off the earth. Her wings knew what to do. They snapped back close to her body and arched forward, cutting a profile for Maleficent as the faery threw her and her young charge into the void. The cold was around them and the wind whistled sharp and long in her ears. Speed was gained quickly and it was over in seconds. Out came the wings, turning that dive into a sudden uplift over the trees still several dozen feet below them. Feathers rustled as she corrected her course and she felt rather than saw Aurora's head shift as the girl laughed and marveled at the sights around her.

Their destination wasn't too far from the cliff, but Aurora's laughter prompted Maleficent to take a lazy, long circular route, using the updrafts and wind currents to soar above the Moorlands. She indulged in some acrobatics, twirling them over in a circle until the laughter was constant from Aurora, and the girl dared to lift her head to stare out over the Moors every time Maleficent spun. The flight, which had meant to be a quick jaunt, turned into a long affair that was brought to a close only when the first drops of rain splattered against the canvas of Maleficent's wings.

She lowered them below the shelter of the treeline and her wings quivered once, twice, and then folded together at her back. Her muscles ached; she didn't mind. The Rowan Tree towered over them both and the boughs above their head kept the rain from their bodies.

Maleficent released Aurora and the princess stumbled and fell against the moss once again, much like that first night flight. "You are as clumsy as Diaval." Somewhere in the Rowan Tree, there was an angry 'AWK!'

"That was wonderful!" Aurora got to her knees, then to her feet. She rushed forward and grasped Maleficent's hands with her own. "Thank you, oh, thank you."

Maleficent smiled, her expression softening. "You are quite welcome, Beastie." She removed her hand from Aurora's own to cup the girl's cheek fondly.

Diaval hopped down from where his nest was and clutched within his beak was a soft brown feather no bigger than Maleficent's thumb. He shuffled closer and deposited it into her waiting hand. Aurora glanced towards it as well. "That looks like one of your feathers."

"Is it?" Maleficent looked to the raven. He clacked his beak and nodded. She brought the feather closer for inspection, twirling it between her fingers. "Is this what you've chosen?"

"Awk!"

Aurora smiled and trailed a finger against Diaval's head. He nuzzled her in return. "It's a good choice, Godmother."

There was an absent smile sent towards Aurora and then Maleficent pulled away to have the space to weave the glamour and magic into the token Diaval had chosen. She saw Aurora and Diaval watching her from her peripheral vision until her concentration was devoted to the task at hand and soon there was nothing but the power coursing from the ground, up through her body, and spilling into the feather within her hand. She whispered the secret words and coaxed the glamour into the very essence of the feather. The gold shimmer of her magic turned the feather bronze underneath it's light and the illuminated remained until the last of the spell was complete. When her magic faded, there was only an iridescence to the feather that gave it away.

"Aurora, fetch me some leather string from the upper branches please."

The princess scuffled up into the tree like a squirrel and spent a few minutes back and forth with Diaval looking for the right sort of leather to fit with the feather. It was comforting to hear the girl's voice so bright and Diaval's responding noises. Aurora returned with a necklace that had hung in the western branches over Diaval's nest. It was simple, with a few glass beads on it that dazzled in the sunlight.

It would do. She wound it around the feather and secured it with one final push of magic. It was complete, and looking down upon it, Maleficent found herself proud of the token, and secretly touched at Diaval's choice.

"Diaval," she began, spinning on a heel to stand before the raven, who had puffed his chest out proudly. "You were the best wings any faery could ask of a bird, and you served me grandly for the past seventeen years. Now my wings are returned to me and you have repaid your lifedebt a hundred times over." She lifted the necklace and set it carefully about the raven's head. It came to a stop, snug just above his breast. "Now I grant you wings, so you may freely go wherever the wind brings you," she paused, her eyes blurry with the beginning of tears, "and when you have found your life's mate, bring her to me and she shall be gifted the same freedom, for you are worthy of so much more than I feel I can ever return."

Maleficent bent low and brushed a kiss gentle upon his head. "You have been, and always will be my dearest friend, Diaval."

The raven clacked his beak, running it along the edge of Maleficent's wrist. When she stepped back, he flapped his wings once to leave the branch and came before them as a man. He looked to his hands, then touched the necklace around his neck. "Thank you Maleficent."

She inclined her head and allowed the moment to linger until the sound of the rain broke through. She looked up towards the two and tried her best to put on a casual air. "Now, what are we going to do for breakfast? …and don't you dare say —-"

"Berries!" The two answered as one.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **School started for the summer, and there were a few last minute adjustments needed that kept me away from writing. This chapter also saw a rewrite itself, as I decided to use Maleficent's P.O.V for the actual funeral itself. Thank you everyone who's replied, and thanks to those who don't leave feedback but like/reblog this all the same. :)

* * *

Over the next two days, shadows from the curse crept forward to darken the light that always dominated Aurora's life. She started to fear going to sleep as time returned memory to her of that hauntingly sibilant whisper guiding her through the castle, down and down into the bowels of iron and stonework. She heard it in the way the wind whistled through the leaves, or in the stirring of the nocturnal creatures of the Moorlands. The babbling brook that branched off from the closest lake would startle her when she fell into a light doze. And whenever she finally sucummbed to sleep after Maleficent spent hours distracting her until exhaustion overrode fear, she threw herself violently from nightmares that plagued her mind.

Was this what it was like when her father started to go mad?

Maleficent stiffened at the question every time she asked even as she pulled Aurora into the shield that was her wings and soothed away the visions, doing her best to not let Aurora see the tiny ways the guilt was obviously affecting the faery as well.

Instead of telling Aurora more about her father, Maleficent told the young Princess about the time after she'd woken by the lake without her wings, and how she'd felt her world's color disappear little by little. She sympathized with Aurora's concerns of madness and worked with the night-terrors by giving the awkward comfort that only Maleficent could manage.

The only time she'd pulled away from Aurora, the wings furling tight to her back in retreat was when Aurora asked if Maleficent thought Aurora could potentially wind up like her.

That second night, Maleficent left Aurora with Diaval and wandered deep into the Moors, away from Aurora's apologetic cries.

Diaval was a comfort but she'd grown accustomed to the weight and warmth of feathers and the raven could only assure Aurora that she'd not sent Maleficent away forever, and that even faeries needed time to fly alone and gather their thoughts.

"She Cursed herself as much as she Cursed you." He said, his hand supportive upon her shoulder, "and I don't think she knows how to deal with that."

"I hurt her feelings, though." Aurora stared at her hands, the rich soil of the Moorlands underneath her fingernails.

"Yes, but your question was honest. The Fair Folk never lie, Aurora, even if the truth will scorch the earth and bring pain with every breath. They live for so very long that they face even the cruelest of truths eventually." He went silent then, and his eyes lifted up to the moon that bathed the world in silver. "All right, little bird, up and up. You need to preen yourself before you head to the castle. It's not so long a flight, but for a horse, it'll be a journey best done before daybreak."

"Huh?" Aurora remembered almost immediately afterwards. "Oh, yes, the funeral. Are you two coming with me?"

"If you ask it of me, it will be done."

"And ...Godmother?"

"She would never leave you alone." Diaval squeezed her shoulder. "Now, I'll head to the cottage to pick out a dress for you, because I think if I let you out of the Moors, Maleficent will turn me back into a dog."

"Wasn't it a wolf?" She'd heard this story a dozen times already, but loves that they have included her in the tale, allowing her the ability to tease and share in the memory. She had been there after all, just ...sleeping.

"You too?" He clutched at his heart in mock-pain. "A betrayal from my very own fledgling. Wolves and dogs are all the same horrible beasts. You know they hunt birds?" He didn't expect her to answer that and they share a smile. "Any color you'd like?"

"I don't know. I've never been to a funeral before. Well … I wore pink at the funeral Auntie Flittle held for her favorite butterfly in the rafters." Diaval gave her a strange look before he was a raven and aloft in the air. He disappeared into the darkness of the Moorland night and Aurora was left to herself.

Diaval'd been correct; she did need to clean up, and if he went to fetch clothes for her, she could take the time to wash off.

So she went to the water and went further, beyond the shore and the grassy bank. The stream that bubbled alongside the hill that rose up to hold the Rowan Tree was cold, but refreshing on her skin. She splashed and scrubbed at her body until the dirt under nails was gone and her body was accustomed to the water itself. She'd picked a sheltered eddy, where the current was slow and sweet and made for a pool that she could dive into, pretending that the world was nothing more than the glimmering underwater landscape about her. Her hair floated about her and the jeweled rocks along the body reflected a rainbow over her body. She did this a few times, each time trying to hold her breath for a little while longer. She counted in her head, and by the eighth time she managed to reach one hundred. When she rose up for air, she heard voices.

Maleficent had returned, as had Diaval. They were down the bank, closer to where the current was white-water in it's quickness before spilling off a small precipice back into the lake proper.. The pair stood side-by-side, with their gaze out over the waters and across it to where the craggy cliffs began.

"Do I even want to know what you turned the horse into to bring him back here so quickly?" Diaval never kept his voice low. Ravens were not known for whispers. Maleficent, on the other hand, was hard to hear. Most of her response was lost over the sound of the stream and the noise of the night.

"I didn't lose her! She's over in that little section over there. No, I haven't gone to check." He darts sideways when Maleficent's wing furls outward. "What?" He frowned and held up the linen bag. "I went to grab clothes! I have a dress for her here, it's the pink one. I think it's pretty."

Maleficent turned on a heel and stalked over to the Rowan Tree, dismissing his words with a wave of her hand.

"Can't she just shake off the water like a proper bird?" Diaval set the bag underneath one of the roots and watched as Maleficent moved through the tree, ducking her head into hollow after hollow until she came away with a bundle of fabric.

Maleficent jumped from the low, wide branch and just shook her head. She approached the little grove, and Aurora saw the way her body shifted to announce her arrival. Her steps grew loud over the grass when they were once silent. Her wings curled out from her body and ruffled in the breeze. There was the swish of her robes, and of course…

"Beastie? I do hope you've not drowned yourself."

Aurora sunk low in the pool. "Not yet Godmother."

"May I sit on the rock nearby?"

Aurora nodded, then realized when Maleficent stayed where she was that the faery couldn't see her. "You may."

Maleficent rounded the willow tree and claimed the large flat rock for herself after setting the bundle of fabric near enough that Aurora could grab it from the water. "Diaval chose well for you but forgot that you would need something for the remainder of the night as well. As you are incredibly short for a human girl, I found one of my old tunics. I hope you don't mind."

Aurora pouted. "I am not that short!"

"Terribly short, I'm afraid." Maleficent's smile was a closed one, but her eyes crinkled in softness. "I fetched a horse for you for tonight's ride if we want to arrive for tomorrow evening, which is when they'll hold it."

"My horse is at the castle, though?"

"Yes, which is why I've approached the ones who live here. One young colt offered to carry you, he considers it quite the privilege." Maleficent leaned back onto an elbow and looked heavenward at the stars. "He is as fast as flight, I promise you."

"You don't want to carry me?"

Maleficent rolled her head to the side, her green-gold gaze finding Aurora's own eyes in the night. "Want has nothing to do with it, Aurora. You are, for the moment, the future Queen of the Kingdom in their eyes."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Maleficent's body rose and fell with the sigh she gave. "Everything. A Queen does not arrive to a social affair within the arms of her Fairy Godmother. It will make you appear childlike when you need to appear …"

"I don't want to appear as anything."

"Aurora, I understand, but we need to show that you are … comfortable in both worlds. That you were not bewitched or stolen."

Aurora swam closer to the bank and lifted up to rest her arms on one of the rocks herself. Chin tucked down, she stared at Maleficent with a curious glint in her blue eyes. This didn't feel like the casual knowledge Maleficent revealed when she spoke of the various fae; this felt serious. It showed in the way the faery held herself, as if she'd been practicing the words.

Maleficent tilted her head to the other side, clucking her tongue. Something weighed on her, Aurora can see it in the way her wings swung low and curled forward. Aurora had learned, quick, to tell the subtle difference between the arch of Maleficent's brow when she was annoyed or amused. Or how her mouth curved up to the side when she was trying to cover up an actual smile. All of that seemed for naught when those wings revealed secrets in seconds when Aurora struggled to uncover them over days. Despite that chink in her armor … "You should dry off, we've got a very long trip ahead of us."

"Godmother?"

Maleficent got to her feet and left the grove. Her steps were heavy and her wings dragged behind her until they finally curled close, the last piece of armor set into place.

Moonlight illuminated the path, and the barren ground where the Wall of Thorns used to stand. The dirt was churned like a plough had been taken to it, rocks and roots overturned and all along the Moorlands as a terrible reminder was the black strip of land. No faery lights flickered through that empty space, and for the short time passing over it, the only sound was the hooves of her horse, and the soft rustle of wings above her.

Aurora herself is tucked within her blue cloak, dressed in the garments Diaval collected from the cottage. She occasionally glanced upward to where Maleficent flew overhead, but the faery did not turn to meet her gaze. Diaval spent his time flying above and then next to the horse's head. If a raven could look apologetic, he did. Aurora understood. Maleficent was a private, aloof woman, and pushing her too far past her comfort zone resulted in a night of silence as the faery collected herself and recovered what she thought lost concerning her pride.

Morning came when they were riding past the pasture and fields of the humans who didn't overly mind the closeness of the forest and the Moorlands beyond it. The sun glittered over the wheat like spun gold. Aurora watched as the farmers went into the fields to work and how Maleficent swept down to the road and Diaval landed upon her shoulder..

The faery folds her wings upon her back like they were a dark cloak. Only her horns gave her away as something beyond human. Still, no one stared overly-long at riders on the road. Not when there was work to be done.

Maleficent walked close enough for conversation, and so Aurora attempted it. "Why do you think they're working? Wouldn't they be at the funeral? One of the books in the cottage started with a grand royal funeral and the whole kingdom showed their respects."

Maleficent looked to the right, as the farmers brought the plow to the oxen. "This is not a kingdom in mourning," she murmured. "I would expect that King Stefan's madness weighed heavy on those at the bottom of this world, and I do not think they care that he is gone."

Aurora looked closer to the cottages, and at the road itself. Her eyes raked over the barns and the sheds and she saw the neglect of years in the way the stones were misplaced and cracked, and how the roofs were ill-suited for anything but the best of summer days. She looked beyond the buildings and to the people themselves. She saw how their clothes hung loose on their frames, and the weariness in their movements.

"Did my father cause this?"

"I would believe so. I understand that the defenses your father built were not built freely."

Aurora noticed another thing, and this brought her to squeeze her knees carefully against the horse's side to bring him to a halt. "Maleficent, where are the men?"

"I wouldn't know, I tend to keep to the Moors, Aurora."

They both looked towards a sudden cracking of wood and Aurora was off her horse in an instant, ducked under the fence to rush over and offer the brace of her shoulder next to an elderly woman struggling to keep a stockpile of barrels from collapsing. There was a flare of gold, and the barrels were locked into place by vines that were as thick as Aurora's palm.

"Aren't you an angel from above," the woman's voice was a breathy sort, her smile tense from the pain of becoming a human stopgap, but it was genuine in it's gratitude.

Aurora felt her cheeks flush. "Oh, no. No. I just, I'm used to helping. When I was thirteen, the barn wall crumbled in and I had to spend the afternoon pushing on the hay bales so Auntie Thistlewit could …" she stopped as the awareness that her three aunts were actually three pixies suddenly made the idea of Thistlewit repairing the wall so much more believable.

"You're a blessing in disguise, then, if you're no angel."

Aurora couldn't help but to smile, but set a hand upon the vines that secured the barrels. "It wasn't just me…"

The peasant woman quirked a brow. She spied the vines and then turned to look upon Maleficent's horned visage. With the sun behind her, the faery was a tall, ominous shadow; yet the woman didn't shy back.

"One of the Fair Folk?" She seemed surprised, but not afraid. Cautious was the word Aurora thought when she watched the old woman. "We have not seen one of your kind for a very long time."

Maleficent tilted her head up, chin haughty, but spoke in time. "Yes."

"Then my thanks to you as well. These barrels are precious. With my sons in the mines, I don't have the hands around to transport these to market and either I'm getting older, or these barrels are getting heavier every year. The old straps used to be enough."

Aurora giggled softly.

"Now, are you Lord Brant's daughter? I think I remember you from the festival three years back. You've certainly grown since then."

"Oh, no… no… I'm…" Aurora stopped, then looked to Maleficent for advice.

"Lord Trevor's ward, coming to court for the season." Maleficent interjected, her hand tight upon the staff. For support or otherwise, Aurora couldn't tell.

The woman clucked her tongue. "His trade caravans always used to come through here; we used to tease that it was their thirst that kept the ale flowing. After that Wall went up though, the forestry trade wasn't so well-received. The King didn't trust what came out of the eastern woods .. um, no offense meant." She ducked her head towards Maleficent.

The faery waved her hand. "The Moorlands are better for the loss of King Stefan's interest, though I am apologetic it hampered your way of life."

"Oh, tosh, no worry. We're far enough from the forest that the castle doesn't mind drinking the ale and eating the harvests. The nobles have their spats all the time. This generation it was the Moors; next generation? It'll be trouble somewhere else. It's the games they've always played." She brushed her hands off on her apron. "I'm Gemma, and I am old enough to remember my manners. Come, break bread with me and allow me some repayment for your aid."

Aurora turned to look towards Maleficent, who drummed her fingers along her staff. Diaval caw'd softly from the nearby fence post. The longer the faery went without speaking, the lower Aurora's hopes got. Until Maleficent inclined her head.

"On one condition, that we share this meal outdoors."

Gemma smiled, and the expression youthened her. "Of course."


	7. Chapter 7

For a human, Gemma was a respectful hostess. She brought out a fluffy bread that had been sweetened by the juice of berries and honey, and a cider that she promised did not bring about the confusion of alcohol. She'd not even batted an eyelash at Maleficent's not-so-subtle flicker of magic that rolled along the food for trickery.

Maleficent still knew all too well the price of trusting a human's hospitality at face value. Her wings might have been returned, but that night was as vivid as if she'd experienced it only the day before. It had haunted her, and it would haunt her for longer than she'd care to grant it power.

Aurora was not so understanding, and gave Maleficent a scolding sort of look that appeared as if she'd been learning from Diaval.

As they broke bread and drank the cider, Gemma answered the hundred and one questions Aurora couldn't help but ask. Maleficent listened in as the old woman discussed her trade as a brewer, and then onto the family that used to fill the house. The longer Aurora and the brewess talked, the more Maleficent realized that the old woman was as desperate for conversation as Aurora seemed to ever be.

"Like birds in the morning," she chuckled softly, and Diaval ruffled his feathers in agreement.

Gemma revealed her reasons for being comfortable around Maleficent when Aurora finally mustered the courage to ask it, for everyone in that small shaded area knew that Maleficent was not an unassuming faery to be taken so lightly at first glance. The old woman talked about her early childhood as a woodcutter's daughter along the river that flowed from the headlands in the Moors. How her father had a respectful association with a faery-man with horns that reminded Gemma of the dragons in the stories he told; "Like your own, Lady Protector."

Maleficent stilled at the tale. She didn't want to partake in the conversation. Just because she liked Aurora enough to face a maze of iron did not mean she was ready to make friends with any human… but she was curious, and curiosity has been one of the few traits she couldn't tamper. "Did you know his name?"

Gemma rocked back in her chair and tutted while she went through her memories. " … Lysander. Yes, that was the name." Her eyes glittered, giving the brown a touch of gold as she wandered through what must have been pleasant memories. "He was tall, and kind - very kind to my sister and I. It was Lysander who blessed my sister and her husband for their pastures to be green and the sheep to be healthy. They're one of the few who had lands directly along the boundary stones."

"I know the place," Maleficent said, her voice as soft as Aurora's ever heard it.

"Do you? Are they doing well? I haven't been much for traveling as I became old and the messenger riders rarely go east anymore."

Maleficent thought of the pasture and the sheep, and knew that somewhere within it was an iron ring that was tossed away many years ago. "The harshness of your king's demands have hit them, but they fared well when last I flew near that way."  
She doesn't mention that she'd dismantled one of their rock walls seventeen years ago. It didn't seem … polite.

The crow's feet around Gemma's eyes crinkle with gratitude. "That is … all one can hope for."

Aurora shuffled her feet under her chair, and her hands fiddled with the hem of her cloak. Maleficent grew concerned that the girl would reveal the entire truth from earlier. True, the abandoned cottage was on the lands of the Lord Trevor, and true, that would technically make Aurora a ward of his; and she knew it was impossible to hide how special Aurora was - and even though Gemma appeared honest and decent, words she'd not associated with humans - oh.

Aurora's pinky finger had crept to the side and brushed along the side of Maleficent's hand. It was a fleeting touch, as quick as the first droplets of a summer shower, but it had happened and … and she wasn't sure she was comfortable with the way it settled her heart in her chest from the fluttery concern of only seconds previous. She pulled her hand away and then Aurora speaks.

"Has the news not reached here yet?"

Gemma hummed in question. "We are lucky if we receive word from the castle every month."

"Oh," Aurora slumped back in her seat, fiddling with the hem of her cloak again. Then she's sitting up straight. "We're on our way to pay respects. The King was slain."

Gemma hummed again, but she sat up as Aurora did. "Was he now?"

Maleficent shot Aurora a warning look, but it's completely lost on the Princess who nods once, body brimmed with the potential for secrets and excitement, just like the books she babbled on about whenever Maleficent unfortunately tilted her head to listen.

"I suppose that means we're in for a new king, then." Gemma slumped back in her chair, chest heaving with a long exhale of breath. "May this one enjoy cider and ale and lower the taxes to someone a nobleman can afford."

The wind was stripped from Aurora's sails. The girl had been eager to share in a secret, or to learn a secret and now the mystery was gone. Replaced by the routine of the common folk. Maleficent allowed herself a momentary smile before schooling her features when Aurora glanced her way, suspicious if the faery had expected the outcome.

Maleficent must have succeeded for Aurora stopped studying her and returned questions to Gemma. She opens her mouth to ask, but closed it. Maleficent's next smile is inward and proud. The girl had picked up quickly how such a game was played.  
Truth was paramount. The truth could be spun as careful as silk, or stretched until it was gossamer, but it must have the heart of the matter untouched. If one never spoke of a thing, if one danced around a thing, these were acceptable. Lying though …

Maleficent asked the questions Aurora could not. "Do humans not grieve for their king?"

"Some do," Gemma shrugged, pouring herself another cup of cider. "Mostly the noble families. The ones that it actually means something to. For the rest of us? It just means that there's a new face stamped into the coins, and the taxes will rise or fall, depending on if the new king's inherited a war, or a debt." She gave Maleficent a small toast. "If you are out and about in the Kingdom, then I will like to hope that means the war is done?"

"We hope as well, it is why we are traveling as the young ward's escort." Maleficent said, and it was growing more honest in her bones every time she spoke of the peace her parents had tried desperately to broker.

"Good. Then with luck and the spirits, the taxes will fall and the men can return to the fields and their wives. Goodness knows I'm tired of assuring young Annabelle that she's not forgotten." Gemma took a long drink of the cider, then frowned. "I am sorry, sweet girl, I have never asked for your name."

Aurora looked to Maleficent, who considered. She had spied often on the humans, and listened to Stefan as he'd recite lessons to her about how and who and what was important in the kingdom. The infant had been given a name at the Christening, and then spirited away. It would probably be harmless but …

"Rose, Briar Rose." Maleficent answered for Aurora. "Her aunts were close with the Fair Folk before the Wall of Thorns. I daresay they took influence from the flower pixies with the name."

"Unusual, but pretty." Gemma toasted to the name, and drank another draught. Her dark eyes scanned the house and the yard. Aurora followed the gaze.

"Are you sure we cannot help you any more?"

The old woman clucked her tongue and shooed away the offer with a batting of her hand. "Nonsense. The Lady Protector has done a grand enough favor securing the barrels and now that they're stocked, I need only to gather my bags of ingredients and begin the next batch. It might even be ready by the next coronation. Oh! I could be the first to offer my goods and see a little luck flow this way again." She toasted to Maleficent one last time before draining the cider and setting it down upon the wooden stump that served as a table. "Thanks to your passing by."

Maleficent waved her own hand. "It was no trouble. Your hospitality has been gratitude enough." Still, she did not complain when Gemma coaxed Aurora into bundling up the rest of the bread into cloth tempered with beeswax to keep moisture out. Faeries had a sweet-tooth, and Maleficent was no exception.

It was close to midday, stretching into the afternoon when they were out of sight of Gemma's village, for that was now how Maleficent named the place in her mind. Aurora had already unraveled one of the bundled cloths and nibbled at the bread as they walked at a leisurely pace, and only once gave Maleficent a petulant pout when requested to share.

"Greedy little Beastie," Maleficent teased, and Diaval used the distraction to snatch a piece for himself.

It was the onset on nightfall when Maleficent took to the skies again and Aurora bent low over the neck of the faery-horse as they galloped to keep up with the powerful beats of Maleficent's wings. Every step brought the trio closer to the cage of iron and regretful memories, but there was laughter in the air as Maleficent ducked low to pluck fingers playfully at Aurora's hood, drawing it up and over her eyes no matter how Aurora weaved out of the way.

It was the middle of the night when Maleficent finally touched feet to earth again and led the faery-horse off the road and along the hedgerows until they were within a small wooden glen that offered privacy. She didn't wake Aurora, who'd rested upon the horse as if the fast pace was nothing more than the rock of a tree. Instead, she carefully gathered the slumbering princess in her arms. Diaval nestled into the crook of a tree nearby as Maleficent laid the girl upon a bed of cloak and moss. She couldn't rest with her yet, not this close to the castle. Instead she paced, lifted herself into the high canopy of the trees that protected them, and allowed her wings to twitch and shiver with the anxiety that rattled along her bones.

It was past the late hours of the night when Diaval takes the shape of a man and draws Maleficent down from the treetops and onto the bed of moss and cloaks. He doesn't have to do much more when Aurora turned in her sleep to the sudden proximity of warmth, and she remembered giving him thanks before sleep rushed over her.

It was the stirrings of the new day, and Maleficent is lulled awake by the tender touch of fingers grazing the tips of her wings. She is called from sleep but doesn't interrupt Aurora. Instead, her gaze is half-lidded and curious. Aurora's fingers trace the pattern of light and shadow over her wing, chasing the ripple of darkness as leaves rustle above them. The touch is comforting and Maleficent, fearing that she's addled by sleep, indulged in it until Diaval trudges into the glen. He didn't have to say anything, but when Aurora pulled away to sit up and prepare to leave, Diaval's eyes met Maleficent's own before he left to keep an eye on the far-too-energetic princess.

The high noon sun did nothing to banish the menacing air of the castle. Maleficent remembered it from the Christening and even then, even wrapped in her revenge, she could not have denied the beauty of the craftsmanship and the art in the stonework, but now? Now it was iron and steel and death and terror.

It was a cage and she found that she could not bring herself to walk any closer to it.

She found her reaction foolish. She was no child to be frightened; yet there was no Aurora trapped within to save and now that Maleficent knew the extent of the iron she couldn't justify continuing on.

"Godmother?" Aurora twisted in the saddle. "You don't -"

"I promised you, did I not?" Maleficent's voice was unwavering, but her wings flared and were restless against her back. She hated and loved that they had never learned how to be still, that they were passion and movement embodied. They betray her and she hates and loves that Aurora seems to know them as if they spoke a language as clear as the sky above them.

"I will understand, I do understand if you don't want to step back in there-"

"Aurora."

" - and I am sure Diaval can keep me safe as well - "

"Aurora."

"Then we'll return to you and we can go home -"

"Aurora!" Maleficent's voice rose, sharp and crystal. It silenced the girl and caused Diaval to look back at her. "Your safety is not negotiable. I am aware of the dangers in there and they are nothing when it comes to -"

"And what about my promise?" Aurora was now out of the saddle, hands on her hips and blue gaze as icy as the winter. "When do we get to talk about what I promised you?"

Maleficent only barely registered Diaval's turn into a raven and his flight into the sky. She was too focused on the little beastie that stalked toward her down the road. Her wings stretch out halfway in wariness. This is something new, but stubborn princesses cannot be any more difficult than moralistic ravens. "I do not understand what you are referring to."

"I promised you that when I'd come to the Moors that we would take care of eachother. That means that I get to protect you as well."

Maleficent knew she shouldn't have laughed, and she'd caught the chuckle just as it left her throat, but Aurora noticed it. "Beastie…"

Aurora didn't shy back from Maleficent's regretful approach this time, only stood her ground with her chest heaving with the exertion of her breath and her cheeks flushed with the strength of her conviction. "I don't want to see you in iron either," she whispered. "It scared me. The net. The … the damned circle. I tried to get it off of you. I did."

Maleficent closed the last remaining feet between them but still didn't reach out to touch. Her wings curled forward but even they refrained from making contact. "You gave me my wings, Aurora."

"Almost too late. Almost too late and I know I need to go in there because my sixteenth birthday gift was an entire kingdom but I don't have to do it right now and I don't want to do it when you refuse to set foot in there. If … If I am the next Queen, then I don't want to force you to ever enter that place."

"He was your father."

Aurora took a long and steadying breath. She'd really taken on some of Diaval's mannerisms in the way she allowed anger to fall from her like raindrops off of wings. She reached out, grabbing for Maleficent's hands. "He was. A long time ago."

"And who's fault is that?" Maleficent does not deny the capture of her hands. "Mine, Aurora. You need to understand that there will be very few allies."

"One, actually." The Captain of the Guard was on horseback a respectable distance away. Behind him, Diaval perched on a fence post. "However, I am your best one."

Maleficent's eyes narrowed to slits. "How convenient you were … just waiting nearby?"

"I was, actually. I doubted you'd would be interested in entering the castle again, so I waited to see if I could spot your approach and meet you halfway." He chuckled wryly, "I suppose I should have reassessed my judgement."

Maleficent did not lighten the glare she directed his way, but she nodded appreciation for the gesture all the same. "You are considering yourself our ally?"

"The Princess' ally, to be specific, but if she says to me to consider you as such, then yes, I suppose you and I would be allies as well."

"Why?"

"Because the Princess Aurora is the rightful heir to the throne, and to the throne is where my loyalties lie." The Captain said, dismounting. The scars from his first encounter with Maleficent were white against the dusky color of his skin, a everlasting reminder of the strength of the Moors defenses. He did not move closer, and did not have the air of expectation that they would move towards them.

Aurora turned around, dropping Maleficent's hands to face the man down the road. "What is your name?"

"Berend from Willowsby." Captain Berend saluted her, a hand pressed over the center of his chest. "I am your servant, Princess."

"I do not understand," Maleficent might have allowed Aurora to drop her own hands, but she hovered behind the girl, protective without being a shield. "If you are loyal to the crown, then could you not just find another king?"

"Oh, aye." Berend nods. "We could. There are at least twelve men of high enough birth that would gladly bear the weight of that golden crown. You might even convince seven of those would-be kings to leave the Moors alone if Aurora remained here. If you took the Princess back with you, perhaps ...four of those seven would be wise enough to leave be the royal bloodline and secure their hold through other means."

"What does that mean?" Aurora asked.

"Princess, as the only living descendant of King Henry, you have the strongest claim to the throne by nature of your birth. If you abdicate that claim, and the kingdom does not get thrown into civil war, then you are the strongest appeal to legitimizing another man's claim to the very throne you gave up. I am certain the faery Maleficent can bring the Wall of Thorns up once again and shield you; but at what price would your freedom cost the Moors?"

"Why are you discussing this? The girl's father is barely a week past the veil and -"

Berend's gaze was ochre as it met Maleficent's. "Because the Council is talking about it. Because the girl might be allowed her month of seclusion, but there is an empty throne in that castle that these noblemen will kill to obtain it and speaking frankly, I do not want to see those men on the throne. I have already spent thirty years watching this kingdom crumble under the greed of two kings. I would hope that a Queen could break the cycle."

"I know nothing about royalty," Aurora admitted.

"You know of loyalty?" Berend looked to her. Maleficent's wings bristled at the presumption of the question. Aurora nodded. "Do you know of wisdom?"

"I ...don't know."

He chuckled. "Do you know of justice? Of mercy?"

Aurora's head turned, her gaze met Maleficent's. Her lips curved into a soft smile. "I think I do."

"Trust?"

"Yes."

"Then you have what is needed for this kingdom. The rest will come in time."

Aurora glanced his way again. "I can't go back into that castle. Not when it is iron and they seek to harm the Moors."  
"I still do not understand what you gain from this." Maleficent moved forward, coming to a stop just at Aurora's side. "Humans always have an ulterior motive, not a one of you is altruistic."

He shrugged, hands spread wide in peace. "I suppose you're correct."

"What's yours, then?"

"I have three daughters, the youngest about Aurora's age. The oldest expecting her secondborn in the winter. I have two sons, one of whom fights in the castle's levy, and the other is a blacksmith called to make the personal arms of the royal guards. All of them with not an ounce of blue in their blood."

"So you're a family of soldiers and smiths." Maleficent shrugged a wing. "What of it?"

"That's my motivation. My family. You think you are the only one to stare up at the castle and hate the shadow it leaves over the land?" Berend shook his head. "I would like my granddaughter to run along the courtyard gardens without a care one day, and I do not see such peace if any of the twelve families takes the throne. It is not a decision made lightly, or at this moment."

"You're the one who brought it up," Maleficent arched a brow. Berend responded by beckoning them to look upon the short-cut fields along the road. They were alone for a distance all the way around them.

"Because this is the only time to speak of it. No decision can be made or acted upon until the next full moon regardless. It is tradition for the child's mourning period, and to allow the ghost of the King to leave the castle for his successor." Berend did not look remorseful at the discussion of the subject, but he did keep his words soft-spoken and patient.

"We came here for Aurora to pay her respects." It was time for change of subject. Maleficent wanted time for her to think, and for Aurora to process.

"Ah, then come with me. He is laid in state for your arrival in the stone chapel along the south road."

"Why?" Aurora asked, and Maleficent dreaded the answer. She could see it in the way Berend hesitated and knew down in her bones that if Aurora had been the child of anyone that was not the departed Queen, it was possible that this discussion would have never happened.

"Like I said, I anticipated your distrust of the castle. This is the private showing for family before he is laid in state for the kingdom to pay respects." Maleficent saw the truth in Berend's eye, but when he spoke, she could not bring herself to lay fault on him for the lie.


	8. Chapter 8

The stone chapel was set far from the well-traveled road that spun towards the castle that Maleficent had balked so suddenly at. It was small, but the lack of grandeur did not diminish from the sense of tranquility that covered the grounds. The stone was old, worn smooth from the years, and the stained glass that detailed the heroic journeys and travels of the ancient knights was dusty from lack of proper care.

The building showed the deterioration that affected the rest of the kingdom, and yet the garden was something wild and tamed at once. Flowers bloomed along winding paths of cobblestone and dirt, and further beyond them, the bushes were allowed to grow and sprawl. Vines wound up through the trees and along trellises that rested against the chapel itself.

It reminded Aurora of her cottage, and how the clearing looked every spring when her aunts would spend hours outside just working in the dirt. They might have been aloof, and perhaps not the best of caretakers, but they were the ones to spark her love of nature, and she found solace here.

Berend dismounted and looped the reins of his horse along a low-slung branch of a oak tree that dominated the southern section. Aurora dismounted as well, but did not match him with the reins. The faery-horse had needed neither bridle or saddle and the colt wandered over to sniff curiously at the flowers.

Maleficent entered last. Aurora turned to watch her, eager to know what the faery thought of the place. Maleficent's wings were tight about her, and her gaze was a sharp and wary thing as it took in the surroundings. Aurora felt anxious until those wings relaxed just a fraction, and Maleficent's chin lowered just slight enough that the princess spotted it.

The breath left her lungs in a hard exhale.

"The Pixies suggested the place."

"They did?" Maleficent and Aurora asked as one.

Berend chuckled. "Yes. They agreed that you'd probably never return to the castle and that Aurora was on her best behavior and was a 'nice little Cabbage' whenever you were out in the gardens with them."

Aurora really disliked that nickname.

"It suits Aurora." Maleficent agreed. "It doesn't suit King Stefan."

Berend took in the chapel and the grounds. "No, it doesn't."

Aurora went to Maleficent's side as the three of them walked towards the open doors. She could see the sunlight spilling through the stained-glass despite the neglect and Diaval went before them, wings beating once to usher him through the archway. Aurora sought out Maleficent's hand, carefully tangling their fingers together. Maleficent didn't pull back as the shadow of the chapel fell onto them.

Aurora wasn't sure if she reached out to offer comfort or to receive it, but the touch quieted the way her heart thudded in her chest. She didn't understand why she was nervous. Hadn't she seen him only a few days earlier, broken and battered from the fall. She remembered gasping when Maleficent had flown back through the window with King Stefan's body cradled in her arms.

They passed under the arch and into the anterior. The chapel was small on the inside as well, a private place of contemplation for a family rather than a community affair. The air was surprisingly fragrent without the smell overpowering the senses. The spirits were represented along their various pedestals, each given equal treatment.

And at the front —

"Hello again," Philip stepped forward. His smile was bright and a little crooked. "I hope I'm not interrupting. I can go if you want."

"Why are you here?" Maleficent's hand tightened with her words.

Berend answered from behind them. "He is here to make sure that the proper customs are followed as due the passing of a king. There are prayers and rites taught only to the bluebloods."

Aurora looked from the dour Captain of the Guard to Philip. "Thank you."

Maleficent did not look as grateful. Rather, she withdrew her hand from Aurora's grasp and kept near to the front door. Even with the chapel's deliberate intention to bring the beauty and freedom of nature indoors, the faery looked visibly uncomfortable. But she did not retreat out to the dirt and grass and that spoke volumes.

Philip's smile changed from hesitant and awkward to something wide and bright. He stepped into the dappled sunlight to stand respectfully at one side while Berend went to the other. Diaval comes to alight upon a pew near the front. The rustle of wings revealed Maleficent's continued presence.

Aurora approached the coffin and peered into it. She expected to feel at least a little sorrowful, but could only stare down at the man who had once been her father. Even in death he looked troubled.

"He looks like he's sleeping." She looked to Berend, and back into the coffin. "No. No, he doesn't." Her head tilted to the side and she noticed the way that the bruises and grime that she'd made out in the firelight of the Throne Room a few nights ago was carefully concealed under a strange powder. He was dressed in clothes that attempted to make him seem, well, not the man she met.

A strange thought hit her, and it is the influence of the Moors and her three aunts that she said it almost as soon as it came to her.

"This is all he's getting, isn't it?" She looked back to Berend, and watched his eyes leave her to find Maleficent's look from the archway. His gaze returned to her.

"I am afraid so, Princess."

Aurora nodded to herself, not sure how to take that information. She shifted and reached out to touch her hand to his own. It was cold and unyielding. "He had no one at the end. Even I wanted to leave the castle when they shut me up in the room. I think that is a very sad way to leave, don't you?"

No one answered her. She was all right with that. She remembered Gemma talking about the seal on the coins changing with the succession of rulership and even that felt so very sad to her. Shouldn't a ruler be mourned by the people they'd promised to lead? What did it say that the common folk only concerned themselves with how high the taxes were raised.

Aurora thought of Maleficent and how the Moors seemed to breathe when she did. The fair folk had kept a respectful - even fearful - distance from the tall faery, but they had watched her and looked after her passing with gazes filled with concern and the wish to help if only they could. The Moors loved their Protector, even as she'd carried the mantle of bitterness and revenge.

Maleficent was more a Queen than her father seemed a King.

That caused Aurora to seek out the faery again. She stepped back from the coffin and towards the archway, where the air was a little lighter and she was not expected to be anyone but herself. Maleficent extended her hand when Aurora neared, and for all the talk in the Moors two night past about appearances and first impressions, the faery did not hesitate to sweep a wing around Aurora's frame. Soon, Aurora thought, she'd not remember the distance Maleficent kept to when they first met. She's quickly grown used to the way the faery's body curved toward her, and how those wings expressed a trust and closeness that Aurora feared that Maleficent unlearned a long time ago.

Aurora hoped that she'd never see a time where those wings did not stretch out and greet her.

The curvature of Maleficent's wing means that Aurora can use the russet and gold feathers to think without being overwhelmed. They smell of the Moors and the feathers are softer than Aurora could ever imagine, but she knew that the wings held enough power to shatter the chains that kept the chandeliers aloft. They are as strong, if not stronger than what Maleficent once told her and now Aurora borrowed some of that strength for herself.

"It would be very selfish of me to run away, wouldn't it?" She asked the question aloud, not really caring who among the other four occupants answered it.

Only Maleficent's wing is unfurled. The faery is stoic against the stone otherwise. "Speak it, Aurora, and we will return to the Moors," her green-gold eyes were slitted like a cat's. Or a dragon's. "And I will personally ensure that you will never know the cruelty of this kingdom from that moment onward."

Aurora believed her. Aurora could see in the taut line of Maleficent's body that the promise would be held without compromise or complaint.

Berend took longer to answer her. "If you were my daughter, and I was not sworn to the throne, I would tell you to get back on your horse and ride as fast as you could until you are so deep within the Moors that the Fair Folk there don't even know what a human is."

Maleficent's half-lidded gaze widened at that. Even Aurora stared at the Captain in puzzled wonder. Philip was silent entirely. Only Diaval made a soft noise of suprise.

"But I am not your father, and I am promised to this kingdom through oaths that were written when the land was young so I can only tell you Princess that to be Royalty is to be chained to your people and your land through links of duty and sacrifice. What I am asking of you is selfish because you have known of this for what, five days at the most?" He did look regretful, and he is animated when he speaks. He is not Maleficent, in that his body is trained to stillness and his thoughts are conveyed solely through his words and his eyes. Berend paced, the dappled sun bringing out all the color of his skin. He spoke with his hands, in the way that his head bobbed to one side as he rolled words around in his mouth before speaking. He was energetic and Aurora felt that if she'd grown up in the castle, he would have been one of her favorite people to follow around and listen to.

"It's not selfish, Captain." She felt as if she had to assure him of that. He was only doing his duty after all. It would be like blaming a Wallerbog for tracking mud everywhere.

"It is. I want to see the men in the castle go home to their wives and families. I want to see them swing a blade in the field and bring down only the harvest for the autumn collecting. I want to see the iron stripped from the castle and the white stone gleaming in the sunlight once again. My grandfather told me once that this kingdom was happy once, and I want my children to see that it could be again." He stopped and pointed towards Maleficent. "You made a wingless faery brave iron just to see you safe, I can only imagine what a kingdom would do."

Aurora shifted. Anyone would do the same thing. She'd run through fire to rescue Maleficent if it was needed. That's just what good people did. She didn't voice that thought aloud though. She already knew it would be protested by both Maleficent and Berend.

Aurora had half-expected Maleficent to retreat from the indoors first, but it is herself that ducked out of that enclosed space to escape the sudden rush of claustrophobia and the need to be underneath only the open sky and to have grass under her feet. Her breath came fast and shallow and she had to bend over to even begin to bring it under control.  
A hand settled on her shoulder. It's not delicate and alabaster, but sun-kissed and strong. Prince Philip's smile is something careful and unassuming. It was how one smiled to assure a frightened bird. "Are you all right?"

Maleficent's eyes gleamed from the chapel.

Aurora straightened up and ducked to the side. He meant no harm, she knew that, but she is not used to someone touching her without asking first. She managed a smile. "Sorry. You startled me."

"My apologies. I seem to keep doing that, don't I?"

"I believe so." They stood opposite each other once again. Aurora could not help but admire him for the Prince really was very dashing and fit the image of such a prince in her mind when she'd been young and reading books about heroes charging off to face down the unknown. The pause in the conversation grew awkward, however.

Philip must have sensed it too because he coughed and stepped back, giving her just that much more room. "I am, ah, very glad to see that you are awake."

"Thank you."

"I really didn't mean to frighten you. I suppose I wanted to tell you that I understand a little bit of what you're feeling right now." He looked up and away from her, towards the giant oak tree. "I am to be King of my own Kingdom very soon. It's why I was traveling to meet with your father when we met." He caught Aurora's confused look and explained further. "I am … was … the youngest of my three brothers. As is tradition, when my older brothers came of age, the first was groomed to rule, the second groomed to worship, and I was to take my place as my father's diplomat."

"What happened to change that?"

Philip's expression tightened with the memory and he continued to keep his gaze averted. "He died in a jousting tournament. It was senseless and sudden."

Aurora hesitated but stretched out her hand to brush comfortingly along his forearm. "I'm sorry, Philip."

He did not shy away from comfort, and he really was very handsome to look at. Even more so when he delicately grabbed her hand and squeezed it in gratitude. "When he passed, my older brother had already taken his vows to serve the spirits and that cannot be broken - not even to claim a kingdom - so it fell to me. I did not expect it."

"I just found out I was a Princess a few days ago, and that I was cursed to an eternal sleep." Aurora couldn't help but laugh, a little, at the situation. "I'm still playing catch up, I'm afraid."

"Don't apologize. I ran off for a month when I found out. Just climbed into Samson's saddle and rode south for all I was worth. If I had the Moors near my kingdom, I might have ran into them instead."

"Maleficent would have been very grouchy at that."

Philip laughed. "Yes, I suppose she would have."

The two of them turned to look at Maleficent whom did not appreciate being the center of attention. Those luminous eyes narrowed as Maleficent kept her eyes upon her young charge. The two royals fell into another silence, but this one felt lighter, and far more natural. Aurora's horse had finished his investigation of the oak tree and had moved toward a small bubbling fountain.

"Lady Aurora," Philip started, "might I offer a compromise that could appeal to your obvious love for the Moors and to your duty as heir."

Aurora turned to him, though she held Maleficent's gaze until the last possible second. "You may, and please, just call me Aurora."

"Very well," he bowed his head. "Aurora. You do not have to rule from the castle."

"I don't?"

Philip shook his head in agreement. "Indeed. Your father was probably stationary within the castle itself because of the kingdom's at-war stance with the Moors. However, during a time of peace, it is expected of a ruler to travel throughout her kingdom to ensure that she's aware of all the local oddities and troubles that would need her attention."

"Travel?" She hoped she didn't sound as desperate as she felt. "You mean…"

"If you so desired, you would never have to step within the walls of that castle. The noble families might be disgruntled, but you can designate a steward to maintain the castle. It will also ease Berend's fears of the noble families because if they want to maintain their own presence in your court, they'll be jousting to be the greatest host and keeping up with your movements as well. Without the central court, it's …difficult to scheme."

"Is this true?" Aurora looked to Berend. "Can I do that?"

"It hasn't been done since one of your great grandfather's reign, but yes, the King (or Queen in this case) can travel wherever in the realm she wishes, hosted by whomever she wishes."

Aurora stepped away from Philip in the yard and towards Maleficent, who still hadn't moved and still watched her from the shadowy arch. "What do you think, Godmother? You'd be able to come and go as you pleased without ever worrying about the castle or being trapped in enclosed spaces. Could… could I even stay near the eastern forest?"

"It is the human's territory, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to."

Aurora clapped her hands together. With Philip's suggestion and Berend's confirmation, the idea of taking the throne was no longer something grim and terrible; barring her from ever going to the Moors. Instead, it sparked in her mind like the first star at night, winking to life with the hope to help others. She could help Gemma, and even foster good relations with the Fair Folk!

"Before you return to the Moorlands, and if your Protector permits it; Princess, have you ever been to a Midsummer's Eve festival?" Berend interjected, his voice breaking into her thoughts.

"No." Aurora looked to Maleficent. "Can we go?"

Maleficent's entire body shifted with the sigh, but she inclined her head and within twenty minutes, the strange fellowship of royals, guards, a faery and a raven made their way down the path toward the nearby village.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Schoolwork has cut into my free-time and these chapters are beginning to lengthen. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, your feedback is very appreciated. Especially the reminders about grammer and tenses. I currently run text-based RPGs and have formed the bad habit of not caring about tense due to just pushing scenes forward. I will strive to make sure that doesn't linger on too much here.

* * *

"I know what you are up to." Maleficent trailed a distance behind Aurora and the young human Prince. The two teenagers had become lost in conversation, with Prince Philip regaling Aurora with stories from his childhood and time spent with his brothers. Aurora was delighted, it showed in the way she kept turning in the saddle to keep Prince Philip in her sight.

Berend had also lingered back, walking his horse instead of riding it. Much like her, he stayed a respectable distance to give the two up front privacy. He raised a brow. "Do you, now?"

"She is not a means to an end, Captain. Not even for your benevolent wishes." Maleficent watched Diaval flutter from the saddle of Aurora's horse to land on a branch further along the road. The raven waited until the humans passed underneath his perch before diving between them, showing off his own acrobatic flair before he returned to the saddle to repeat the entire affair. The prince and princess seemed to enjoy it, cheering on Diaval's swoops and flips.

"She isn't?" Berend watched Diaval's antics. "A shame you didn't feel this way sixteen years ago."

Anger flared white-hot in the pit of her stomach and crept upward until the grip on her staff would shatter anything non-magical. "How dare -"

"- Just because you grew a conscience, Lady Protector, does not mean you are exempt from what you did." Berend lifted a hand up to run along one of the prominent scars that marked his face. "You are the reason that this feels bribery for the Princess when I am simply showing her the good that is within this kingdom that she would have known had you restrained yourself."

The anger coiled tight in her chest now, and just underneath her skin, Maleficent can feel the magic crawling through her veins. Her vision is tinted at the edges with a vivid green. Her wings have flared out, arcing to either side of her. It's blatant intimidation, and it worked because Berend faltered in mid-stride.

"You understand very little, Captain, of what happened sixteen years ago."

"What I may or may not understand does not change the fact that the Princess was raised in the middle of the woods, without any human contact, and without the awareness of what she was born to do."

"I did not make him send her away." Even to her own ears, that was a weak justification, and it's one she regretted the moment she did.

Berend must have noticed the sudden creep of shame because he doesn't continue that line of conversation. He adjusted the saddle bag on his own warhorse and let that part of the past rest uneasily between them. His eyes flicker from her to Aurora up ahead. "What matters is the Princess now."

"She is far too kind-hearted for this Kingdom. Your rulers have been nothing but ambitious, violent men who have crashed time and time against the Moors. I do not even know if you have relations with other human kingdoms beyond warfare."

"There were lucrative trade routes sixteen years ago, then the textile economy collapsed. Our tailors and weavers couldn't keep up with the demand from the southern kingdoms with simple hand-spinning."

Maleficent shrugged a wing. She had not set out to crush that industry, but it had brought her vindictive pleasure after she laid the initial curse and watched the kingdom buckle under Stefan's foolish decree. As if burning all the spindles would stop such a powerful curse.

Berend ran a hand over his chin. "You know she deserves to spend time in the kingdom."

"I know no such thing." Maleficent scowled.

"You do, even if you don't want to admit it."

"The Moors can provide all that she could ever want." Maleficent knew that. After all, she'd been raised within the Moors and had turned out exceptionally well.

"I do not doubt that. Can it provide what she needs, though?"

Maleficent's wings arced forward, then rolled back against her shoulders. "Explain."

Berend's smile was a wry one. "The fact that you would require an explanation should be enough of an answer, Lady Protector."  
Maleficent fell silent. She stared down at the path they walked on, and the fight left her in a rush. The anger from earlier turned inward, into a cloying sense of guilt. She didn't need the keen sight of the eagle to notice how Aurora lit up with companionship. The girl was now regaling the young Prince with one of her earlier birthdays and it somehow involved spiders.

Berend's voice came soft. The strain to be gentle was obvious in the inflection, but he was trying. "The midsummer's festival is not just for the Princess' benefit."

"You cannot be referring to me." Maleficent's chin lifted.

"Oh, but I can."

"What benefit could it be for me, Captain?"

"That there is goodness and joy within the kingdom. The Princess loves the Moorlands, that is obvious to even the blind beggar; but you do not love her kingdom - and with understandable reason," he hastened to elaborate when she scoffed. "If the Princess is just, she will take the crown in a month."

Maleficent scowled but waved him off of explaining his thoughts further. She could follow them without him voicing them aloud. She could remember being affronted that Stefan had never warmed up to the border guards and wondered for the longest time why he could not make the attempt to see the harmony within their gnarled bodies as she could. "After the festival, I am taking Aurora back to the Moors for the remainder of the month."

Berend waited for her to continue.

"You are correct, I suppose. It is growing obvious that the more time she spends in this kingdom, the more she is considering your offer. I do not know if humans are born to their roles as faeries are …" she twirled the staff between her fingers, suddenly aware that she had only a few short months with Aurora before the girl's sixteenth birthday and a curse she thought would go unbroken; and now she had even less time before Aurora was lost to the world of men. There had been … there was so much Maleficent wanted to show the girl within the Moors.

Berend looked as if he wanted to answer her, but a piping music on the wind interrupted him. Maleficent realized that the two young humans had stopped to wait for her and the captain to catch up.

...

The sun had left it's apex and was sliding down towards the western sky, drawing long shadows throughout the farmer's field that had been transformed into a maze of market stalls and crackling bonfires. Children weaved through the crowd of adults as easy as pixies dancing in flight, and music filled the air with a upbeat, lifting tune. Truthfully, Maleficent had to begrudgingly admit that the captain's bribe was a cunning one, both for Aurora who stared at everything around her with wide eyes that refused to blink lest she missed one little detail; and for Maleficent, who was growing to understand that sheltering Aurora within the Moors was impractical. Not when the girl wandered from stall to stall marvelling at sights she'd never seen before.

The music turned Aurora's light steps into a sort of dance as the girl flitted and darted through a world new to her. The wonder in her eyes was close to the gleam that had entranced Maleficent when she'd invited Aurora into the Moors. The faery had taken to old habits, ducked into a shadowy grove to watch the girl from afar. Aurora had protested, at first, but the music and the sights tugged at her as novelty tugged at all children and soon she'd wandered off with Prince Philip and Berend at her side, the men promising to keep her safe.

"She really does belong anywhere she goes, doesn't she?" Diaval's voice is hoarse from the day and night spent as a raven. The way he came up next to her, head bobbing as he tracked Aurora's path as closely as Maleficent did was birdlike in mannerisms.

"Yes," Maleficent breathed in reply. She did not want to answer the unspoken question she could see in Diaval's eyes, but ravens were impulsive and rash creatures and cared little for ideas of silence and brooding thoughts. They lived their lives noisily, with their feelings and concerns voiced in loud, harsh tones that shattered a forest's stillness. Diaval was no different. Not even after nearly two decades wearing the skin of a man.

"What do you think of the offer of the human Captain?" He stood directly at her side and side-stepped the sweep of her wing outwards, as if it was ingrained in him to do so. "I tried to keep Aurora distracted so the two of you could speak freely. I know as well as you do that there's bad blood. You don't just eat all the mice in the owl's territory and then expect him to share the tree hollow."

She raised a brow.

"Uh, that is Aurora is the mice and the eating of is ...the stealing of her… stop looking at me like that. You know I hate it."  
She complied. She prefered keeping her eye on Aurora anyways. "Your analogies are terrible, Diaval."

"They're not terrible! It's this speech that's terrible."

"Shall I turn you into a wolf again so you can continue this baying in a form proper for it?"

He scowled and came to lean against the tree she hid behind, turning his back toward the colorful tents and crackling fires. "I can see that you're in a lovely mood."

"You do not have to stay if you think I'm ill company." She caught him with her gaze for a second, then looked away once more.

"You're always ill company when you don't like what I'm telling you," Diaval's exasperation was laced with the fondness of years together. He shuffled at her side, a human mimicry of dancing from foot to foot while a bird. "Mistress…"

She did not feel in the mood to correct him at the moment. A peevishness had come upon her since she'd spoken with the human captain. It had been obvious enough that even Aurora had caught on and quickly found reason to go venture forth outside the protection of Maleficent's wings.

Not that she minded. She preferred her space.

"Maleficent," Diaval drew her attention again. His eyes were wide and black and imploring, like he wished he could solve this dilemma for her. Her fingers twitched with the urge to change him into a raven, her hand even left her staff to come up in warning. "She's not that oblivious - she knows there's something bothering you."

"What could be bothering me? I am enjoying - I was enjoying a moment's relaxation to myself without the nagging input of a raven or the constant attention of a little beast." Her voice was high and imperious and her body ramrod straight. She even managed to keep her wings furled tight to her back and they only twitched twice to give away her agitation.

Diaval gave her a strange look. "Are you angry with Aurora?"

"What? Of course not. She is only doing what is natural for humans."

Diaval's eyes crinkled in sympathy. He knew what she was referring to. Still, he attempt to make her say it. He always made her voice aloud that which she would rather keep buried. "And what is natural for humans?"

She sidesteps the answer he's expecting with a quick shake of her head. She tensed when his hand set upon her own. A trembling noise stopped then, and she realized it'd been her staff shaking against her palm. "You are the only one who has never left me Diaval."

Diaval chuffed soft against her shoulder. "She's hardly going to leave you. Aurora adores you."

"She will leave. Maybe not for ambition, or power; but because she is young and this is a world that has been denied her for her entire life. Humans are flighty, Diaval."

"As the only avian creature in a hundred miles who has the wits about himself to speak, I would like to protest the implied insult against birdkind and suggest that you relate humans to anything else. Like dogs." Diaval sounded so affronted, and the look he gave her was so wounded, that Maleficent could not help but let out a breathless chuckle. He grinned, then leaned in close until they were shoulder to shoulder. "Maleficent, hatchlings have to leave the nest sometimes."

"Aurora is not a hatchling."

"All right, maybe she's not your hatchling, but I like to think of her as mine."

"Do you?" Maleficent furrowed her brow.

He blinked at her. Opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Or, thought of something else, she couldn't tell. "Are you telling me that you think the curse kept Aurora alive?"

She shrugged. Human children were not her area of experience. "I do not know. It would have been a very poor curse if it had allowed her to die when she was sixteen months old." She frowned, puzzled at the look upon Diaval's face. "What?"

"I can't speak to you right now." Diaval stepped back and smoothed out his shirt like he was preening, an action he did when he was disgruntled. He left the shadow of the trees to stalk forward into the clearing, backlit by the bonfires.

"Diaval?" She called after him. He shook his head and threw up his arms. Along the way, he bumped into Aurora who had her arms full of small, wrapped bundles. "I am no longer speaking to Maleficent."

"All… right?" Aurora's brow knit in confusion as she stopped to watch him disappear into the crowd. Once he was gone, she continued on her trajectory to where Maleficent was. "Is Diaval all right, Godmother?"

"Who knows with that bird?" Maleficent put the matter behind her. "What are you carrying?"

"Huh?" Aurora glanced into her arms. "Oh! Come here and I'll show you! Philip was nice and let me pick out some things."

"Did he?" Maleficent was glad the human prince was nowhere in sight. She would not have been at fault if he somehow happened to turn into something neither human or princely, but then she would have to explain the sudden change to Aurora and Maleficent was certain that the young girl would not understand the irrational dislike the faery had for the boy. Or believe her about accidental magical mishaps.

"Mmhmm! If you come out here and sit with me, I'll let you see them."

"Who says I want to see them?"

Aurora smiled. "I do."

Maleficent stood still, long enough that it would have made Diaval antsy. Aurora just waited and when there was no movement from where Maleficent was, the princess shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the grass without ceremony. She unwrapped one of the bundles and an enticing smell immediately wafted to where Maleficent resided. It smelled of clover-honey with a spice that the faery had never encountered before.

It reminded her of the sweet cakes the shepherds used to leave out on the rocks for the small faeries. Maleficent only tasted one of them once, when she had begged Sweetpea, a flower faery, to go get one for her.

"What is that?"

"I thought you didn't want to see my gifts?" Aurora's tone is far too innocent for the question to be an honest inquiry.  
"I do not want to see it, I merely want to know what it is," Maleficent huffed.

"I'll let you know what it is if you come out, Godmother." Aurora smiled again, and it was so easy for her. Diaval was right; the girl belonged wherever she went. The only outlier seemed to be the castle, but Maleficent could not fault Aurora for never wanting to set foot in that monstrosity of iron ever again.

"I am fine here, Aurora."

"You don't need to be my shadow here, Godmother. I don't think anyone knows who you are, and even if they did, they seem to be incredibly fascinated with a drink that tastes like berries, but with a bitter aftertaste."

"You had some?"

"A … little bit. Berend suggested that I not drink more than a cup of it." Aurora sat crosslegged on the grass and lifted up something to her mouth. She took a bite out of it, and then spoke around the mouthful. "Would you like some?"

Maleficent remembered another human upon the green grass offering her a drink. Her body shivered with the memory. "No."

Aurora pouted. Her eyes were black with her back to the firelight, but it lit her hair as if the tresses were truly spun from gold. "You are acting just like my aunties."

"I am not."

"You are! You only want to spend time with me when it's fun for you."

"That is most certainly not the case, Aurora. Do not be foolish." Maleficent waved a hand dismissively.

"Then why won't you sit out here with me?"

"Because this is as close to humans that I care to be, Aurora, and if you ask me again ..." There was a warning in her tone, one not used since the first night Aurora charmed her out of her hiding spot.

Aurora shook her head, and gathered up her bundles. She got back to her feet, a little unsteady and marched to the very edge of the thicket. She set one of the bundles deliberately just beyond the tree Maleficent stood behind, then turned on her heel to resume her march, but this time into the festival and away from Maleficent. She vanished into the crowd much like Diaval had.

And Maleficent? Well. She waited until she was certain that she would be unseen before retrieving the bundle Aurora left. She retreated into the thick of the trees, and then further still, until she could stand in the open far beyond the fire and music, underneath the dying sun where the shadows stretched long over her form and allowed her the freedom to stretch her wings without prying eyes.

Curiosity had always been a vice, and so she could not help but to unwrap the parcel. It was not a sweetcake, or even food, but a strange woodcarving of what appeared to be a barren Great Tree, the branches gnarled and sprawled over the entire piece. Scrawled into the image of those branches was a language Maleficent had thought long disappeared from the world.

Her fingers smooth over the engraved words even though she cannot translate the obviously-fae script underneath them. It was a lovely carving but what had it been doing being sold in a human festival? Even if it had been a lucky guess by the woodcarver, the script was too complete for simple imagination; and Maleficent knew without a doubt that no human save Aurora had ever ventured deep enough within the moors to spy the ruined fragments of what once was.

Her wings slackened as she traced the engraving a second time, then a third time. Now the shadows are more numerous than the sunlight, They play on her like she is a stage for them to dance, and they are fluid and haunting in their patterns. She spread her wings further and the breeze from the east ruffled and stirred through the flight feathers and for a moment she thinks she can smell the richness of the Moors on the wind and the scent of her home carried comfort in a place she'd not expected to find it. The glimpse of home is enough to settle the churlishness of her mood and she thought on a way to make amends with Aurora.

...

Maleficent returned to the thicket and then beyond it. There is a fallen oak tree in the clearing, covered in vines and moss and it is that place she made her roost in anticipation for the return of Aurora, or even Diaval. She doesn't have to wait for too long for Aurora appeared at the edge of the stalls, Diaval at her side.

"I told them you wouldn't leave!" She exclaimed, setting her trinkets and food bundles into Diaval's arms so she could run the distance between her and Maleficent. She kicked off her slippers and darted up the log without a care for her dress, stopping only when she was a foot or so from the faery. "I'm sorry. For earlier. I was just so excited and …" she trailed off, scrunching her face. "I'm sorry."

"I was not exactly on my best behavior either, Beastie." Maleficent tilted her head up, eyes drifting to the velvet sky above them. She could not see the stars due to the fires, but she knew they were there. "Are you enjoying yourself despite your godmother's peevishness?"

Aurora nodded. "I am. There were foods of all sorts and spiced with herbs. Philip says they're from the southern lands beyond even his borders, across a wide channel of water greater than even the lake of the Moors."

Maleficent arched a brow. "How do you know how wide the lake is, mm? Have you been flying without me?"

"Oh yes, Diaval turns into a dragon for me and we soar through the cliffs. I've mapped out the entire Moors already! Haven't you?" Aurora was a fair bit below Maleficent and she rested her head upon the faery's knee. Her eyes are wide and bright and she smiled as if there had not been a spat between them.

Maleficent's hand ran over Aurora's hair. The girl is light and bubbly with the human drink and she hummed like one of the water nixes when her hair was stroked. "No. Even I do not know the Moors that well. You will have to show me this map when we return then."

"It's in Diaval's nest." Aurora nodded, then lifted her head slightly. "Do you know what was my favorite part of tonight?"

"No, what was it?"

"The stories. There were so many stories. There were even faerie stories."

"Were there now?" Maleficent nodded as Diaval came to settle at the base of the fallen log, head lolled back against the bark and moss.

"Yep!" Aurora stretches a leg to poke her foot playfully against Diaval's shoulder. "There were no raven stories though."

"A pity."

"Ravens tell our own stories far better than humans could. They're very biased. We don't steal all the time, and we certainly are not heralds of bad omens." Diaval voiced from his position at the base of the log. His head rolled back so he could peer upside-down at the two of them.

"You do so steal." Maleficent scoffed. "Look what happened to my poor Rowan Tree. Half of the upper branches are devoted to whatever little bits and bobs you have decided to claim for your own."

"I have improved the tree, I don't know what you're complaining about."

"Hmph." Maleficent leaned back against the bark, gaze heavenward once again. "Did you enjoy their faerie stories, Aurora?"

"I didn't stay for them." Aurora rubbed at her eyes, then crawled further up the log until she was at Maleficent's waist. "Can I lay here?"

"Always."

Aurora's smile was visible even in the dark. She was careful, and minded the feathers, and tucked herself against the length of Maleficent's body. Her chin rests at Maleficent's shoulder and when she breathes, Maleficent can smell the berry-sweet wine. Maleficent's wings furl up to keep Aurora steady against her, and the gentle weight of the girl over her wing is a comfort. She listened as Diaval's breathing evened out until he was lost to sleep, still wearing the form of the man. Maleficent envied him the rest, for she knew that she could never lower her guard outside of the Moors. Still, she did not attempt to wake him, and the music is enchanting in it's own way.

"Godmother?" Aurora's voice is more murmur than sound.

"Yes?"

"Where did all the dragons go? One of the bards was telling a story about dragons because there's a rumor that one destroyed the entire throne room, but I didn't really believe his version of events." Aurora turned her head so she could watch Maleficent's profile.

Maleficent's hands were tucked at her stomach and she lifts one to trace out a glimmering, golden thread in the air. She thought to the woodcarving Aurora had given to her, and the mysteries it held. It had been a very long time since she last had the desire to wander into the inlands of the Moors, where the lakes and cliffs yielded to marshes and bogs, caverns and ravines that stretched as far into the earth as the craggy cliffs reached for the heavens. She thought that she would venture back there soon, but first there was a story to be told.

"Once upon a time, before either humans or faeries knew how to build sprawling kingdoms, lived the dragons…"


	10. Chapter 10

Aurora awoke to the night still around her and voices low and urgent just beyond the wall of feathers. Maleficent's body was tense against her side, and her wings were distended as the feathers gained size and volume during Aurora's doze. Curious, she lifted a hand to trail a finger along the plumage and discovered that while the long flight feathers themselves were still normal, the downy feathers that lined the top of the wing itself were bunched up, like how she'd seen Diaval when the nights turned colder than expected.

A shiver ran through the wing at her touch but before Aurora could try and elicit that reaction a second time, Maleficent's hand closed quite firmly about Aurora's wrist and guided the princess' touch away from the small down and back towards the large primary feathers themselves.

Was Maleficent ticklish there?

It would have been a fascinating discovery to uncover, but Aurora knew better than to even begin such an investigation when everything about the faery's body language suggested trouble. She had only seen Maleficent this tense before the ambush in the throne room.

The hand around her wrist retreated and Maleficent continued the conversation, the pause seemingly as natural as a momentary halt could appear. Maleficent and … she tilted her head and held her breath to discover the second speaker was Berend. They spoke quiet enough that the wing muffled most of the words, and Aurora thought to herself that they both must believe she was still asleep.

So she wriggled as best as she could in what she believed would be perceived as natural movement during one's sleep to try and find a spot where the insulating plumage did not keep out the sound as well as the cold.

Unfortunately, Aurora was not the most subtle of creatures and soon enough the wing pulled up and away just enough to reveal the glittering green-gold of Maleficent's inquiring look. Aurora waggled her fingers in a responding wing continued to pull away until Aurora shook her head once, quick.

That inquiring look turned into an arched brow and pursed lips, but the wing settled down alongside Aurora's body, leaving her shielded from Berend's view yet able to listen.

"Is everything all right?"

Maleficent's attention left Aurora to return to Berend. "She has been having nightmares since the throne room."

The captain of the guard fell silent. Aurora wondered if it was guilt. After all, he must have helped to plan the ambush. Was that not what captains were for?

"She's settled back down." Maleficent didn't even blink when Aurora's nature to explore meant that she lifted the faery's hand to compare it with Aurora's own.

"You two are very close."

"You sound surprised."

"Does she know who cursed her?"

Aurora felt the magic flare within Maleficent. Beneath the cover of the dark wings, Aurora watched a green shimmer run just underneath the alabaster skin of her faery godmother. It struck her as the same glimmer that had pulsed within her own fingertip. Even now, the finger throbbed as if in sympathy, and Aurora was not sure if Maleficent's magic was reflecting on her own body, or if there was a lingering shard of the curse embedded within her still.

Aurora's hands tighten around Maleficent's own, and she turned into the faery. She tucked her head just at Maleficent's shoulder and lifted her gaze to try and show Maleficent through her eyes that she had forgiven her for that.

Aurora did not know if Maleficent took heed of her offer of support or if the faery clamped down on her own expression of anger through the iron control she had over her body. Whichever had been the case, Aurora is cast into darkness once more and Maleficent's body relaxes just a fraction. Now she was as tense as a spooked deer rather than an angry cat.

"She knows." Maleficent's voice was soft and filled with a sad sort of awe, as if she could not believe what she said.

"Our Princess is a merciful woman, then."

"This is not mercy, Captain. As you have reminded me several times, Aurora was raised in a rather interesting fashion. Pixies are not affectionate creatures. They are fickle and ever-changing as the seasons and can only carry one or two strong emotions at a time. I do not know about how humans are generally raised, but I would assume that you interact with your children, no? Hold them and comfort them when it is needed?"

"Of course."

Maleficent's voice took on that sad inflection once more. "Aurora's truest companion was a raven, and though he could croak a lullaby and snuggle in her cradle and bed to give her warmth, it is not what a child deserves."

Aurora remembered those nights. When she would feel listless and wished that her aunties would spend at least a little time after the sun set with her, she would spy the shadow at her window and share the early night hours with her pretty bird. Though, as she thought on Maleficent's words, she wondered if the faery was herself desperate for companionship.

"I do not understand why this warrants questioning. Do humans not become touch-starved?"

"It … this is rather improper behavior for a princess."

"Why? She seeks comfort and I provide it." Maleficent's wing shifts up and back, then down and forward. She's grown anxious. Aurora took heed from Maleficent's own words and turned closer into the faery.

"You are not her mother."

"I am still rather confused. What does my lack of being Aurora's mother have to do with anything?"

Aurora did not have to see the captain to know that he was uncomfortable with the way the conversation headed. She wanted to chime in, to tell him to leave Maleficent alone but kept quiet only because she had already surmised that how he spoke and what he thought changed whether or not he realized she was paying attention. So she remained quiet, and listened. She might have come to her own sobering understanding that she could not just run away forever into the Moorland, yet that did not mean she would accept him and trust him blindly.

Only four days prior he had worked under her father with the intention to ensnare and murder Maleficent.

She had not forgotten that. No matter how merciful he believed her to be.

"There are ...certain standards of propriety that a young lady of such high standings should strive to maintain. One of those is …"

"Is what? Touch? Comfort? The simple desire to be with another person?"

"I am not exactly the person to explain this. Perhaps if I brought over one of the Sisters."

Maleficent laughed. It was a sweet sound, touched with a tiny amount of pity. "No. No need to bring over another human to lecture me upon human morals and decency. I have plucked out what you are intending to teach me. I am not sorry to say in return that I simply do not care."

"When the Princess is crowned …"

"If Aurora decides to be crowned, then I will ask her what she wishes. Until that occurs, she is a girl who has not yet been taught to shun companionship and I will not be the first to teach her that desiring the presence of another is such a terrible sin." Underneath the wing, Maleficent's hand turned in Aurora's own until their fingers were entwined. It was a silent affirmation to Aurora even as she said it aloud to Berend. "Save for the pixies who care most for themselves and the flowers under their charge, the Fair Folk do not care if a person decides to spend a night curled against another and I will not change that to suit your human squeamishness."

Berend went quiet again, long enough that Aurora would have believed he left if not for the lack of his armor making noise.

Maleficent took pity on the man. "You approached me for a reason, Captain. What was it?"

"Ah." Berend sounded grateful. "One of the watchposts nearby sent me this." There was the sound of unfurling paper. "Do you need me to read it for you?"

"No." Maleficent squeezed Aurora's hand once, then lifted it up to take the paper. She did so, her eyes glowing faint as she skimmed the paper. When she finished she returned it to Berend. "Does it say the truth?"

"I'm not sure. We have had ...complications with a local group for a few years now, but they've never escalated beyond cattle thievery and the occasional brawl in whatever tavern was set up for a week."

"You did nothing about them?"

"The King devoted the entire Kingdom to seeing your defeat, Lady Protector; what little there was to spare was not enough to devote to petty criminals."

"Just faeries."

"You cursed the Princess."

"I left your King and this Kingdom alone for sixteen years! If Aurora had not returned to bid her aunts goodbye, she would have come into the Moors and her sixteenth here and gone, and I still would have let this kingdom be. However, as things went, I came to the castle to save Aurora. Only to save her." Maleficent's hand returned to Aurora's grasp.

"What if we had been successful in preventing the curse?"

"I would have been relieved that Aurora was safe."

"You wouldn't have come for her?" Confusion laced his words.

"No." The refusal was adamant. "Not unless she requested it of me."

"Forgive my bluntness, but you are strange, Lady Protector."

"I prefer blunt honesty actually." Maleficent shrugged a shoulder. "How concerned are you with the report of those 'petty criminals'."

Berend sighed. "Referring back to what we discussed earlier, Although I am glad to see that the Princess and yourself enjoyed this distraction, I am beginning to think that it would be best for all if she was taken back to the Moorlands until the ceremony itself."

Maleficent frowned and adjusted so that she was sitting upright. That meant that Aurora could not remain tucked against her without giving away her wakefulness to Berend so Aurora fell back onto the wing and watched Maleficent's face for clues to her thoughts. "What changed your mind? Last night I believe you were going to demand Aurora remain here."

"Remember how I spoke of the Council? They are as ambitious as King Stefan was, and as aggressive as King Henry. You read the paper. Those criminals kidnapped a girl from the inn. Kidnapping usually comes with a ransom."

"You think they're looking for Aurora."

"I know they're looking for Aurora." Berend shifted and his armor clanked with the movement. "The only souls who knew of the curse breaking are those who were in the castle the night you defeated King Stefan. The only souls who knew that the Princess would be returning to the Kingdom to pay respects to her father were myself and the Council."

"If one of these twelve men were to take Aurora hostage …"

"Then they have essentially won the throne without bloodshed. King Stefan was raised up through marriage to King Henry's only daughter. It's precedent for another man to do the same; and if the highwaymen learned exactly who they were kidnapping, who's to say they won't attempt such a rise to power themselves?"

"Humans have rigid rules for who can rule though, do they not?"

"Aye, but once again, King Stefan set a precedent. He was not of noble blood. Not even of merchant's stock. He was a orphaned peasant."

"He became king because he vanquished me. I remember Diaval telling me of the coronation." Maleficent rolled her neck back and forth as if reminders of that time exhausted her.

"You know, I became Captain of the Guard the day King Stefan was crowned?"

"This is interesting to me for what reason?"

Aurora could not fidget and fuss with Maleficent's hands in her new position, but she could explore the wings again. The activity kept her quiet and helped her to focus on the discussion. She knew it was serious. Maleficent's body had gone taut once again, and the undercurrent of magic had returned, only this time it was a startling gold that turned the faery's skin to amber.

"The Oaths of the Captain make sure that we are devoted to the throne to the point of suicidal fanaticism. The previous guard attempted to assassinate King Stefan the night before his crowning."

Aurora lifted her head even as Maleficent turned hers. "Oh?"

"He was caught and executed the very same night, and swore until the sword fell that King Henry had been murdered and King Stefan's ascension was a lie."

" ...was the king murdered?" Maleficent asked.

"My predecessor was a better man than I was. If he said something to be true, then it was probably true."

"Then why did no one dispute it?"

"At the time, we believed he had vanquished you, Lady Protector. Even if King Henry had been murdered, the truth of the matter was that Stefan had brought you down. You! A faery woman who defeated the King's army by herself. If Stefan had stolen your wings, and if he had stolen the crown, who would be foolish to think themselves strong enough to contest him?"

Maleficent's wings shuddered at the memory of exactly how King Stefan had 'vanquished' her. Aurora could see the revulsion tremble down into the feathers and back up until it completed the journey with a violent shake of Maleficent's horns.

"And to be truthful, Lady Protector, if you are still alive then King Henry's decree still stands. Any nobleman who vanquishes you will have a claim, and if they also have the Princess…"

"Yes, I am beginning to see your point." Maleficent finally looked down into the shelter of her wings and met Aurora's gaze a second time. There was a haunting look in her eyes that made Aurora want to reach up and brush it away somehow but despite her assurances that she was sixteen and could take care of herself, she began to grow aware that there was still a lot left to learn about life. "Aurora."

"Yes?" She did not try to mime drowsiness. The discussion had succeeded in waking her fully.

"What do you wish to do?"

Aurora sat up and glanced between Maleficent and Berend, who looked surprised to learn she'd been awake the entire time. He stammered a 'your grace' and bowed. "Until I am crowned Queen, I am in danger?"

Berend agreed.

"And … and Maleficent is in danger?" The name felt weird in her mouth, like her tongue and teeth weren't yet ready to roll over the syllables with the right amount of reverence they deserved. She could not call Maleficent 'Godmother' before Berend though. He did not have the right to intrude upon that part of their lives.

Maleficent was displeased with that question. She scowled and her eyes gleamed green as if daring Aurora to suggest that she could ever be brought into danger by mere men ever again. Aurora knew better. She remembered the iron net and the way Maleficent stumbled to gain even an inch of ground before her wings had returned.

If Aurora had been even seconds late …

"We should go back to the Moors." Aurora tilted up to meet Maleficent's emerald gaze. "If the men do come, you can fight them there and you'll be at your strongest with the Border Guards with you."

Still displeased, Maleficent could not disagree with that assessment. "It would be quickest if I flew with you. Your horse is agile and quick enough to make it back on his own without the concern for a rider."

Berend stepped closer to the log. "If we ride though, I can accompany you."

Maleficent chuckled, the sound dark and mischievous. "Oh, no. I have a better plan …"

Philip was surprisingly agreeable about the plan, though he did blush when both he and Aurora stepped out in their new clothing. He stammered and did his best to look everywhere but the trousers and tunic Aurora wore, but failed miserably. In truth, it had taken some glamour to tighten the clothing about her, for she was not as broad in the shoulders as the Prince, but once Maleficent deemed the magic sufficient, Aurora enjoyed the change of clothing. It was new and exciting and she could dart around without worrying about tangling her legs in the dress.

She tugged at the blue tunic and finally secured the sweeping dark cloak around her. She could not see the glamour upon her but she felt the tingle of magic at her scalp. "How do I look?"

Philip squeaked out something she couldn't understand and disappeared behind the canvas wall. Aurora spun around before Maleficent and Diaval, who had taken up watch as a raven. Diaval 'awk'd in approval and Maleficent canted her head to the side with a frown and a soft 'hmmm'.

"I do not know if dark hair suits you, Beastie." Maleficent had pinned her hair up as she'd cast the glamour so Aurora couldn't pull a strand before her to see it in the firelight.

Diaval made a disagreeable noise with Maleficent's teasing and flew over to settle on Aurora's shoulder. He butted his head against her cheek once as if to tell her to ignore Maleficent as faeries didn't understand anything.

He had swooped down to land and changed back into his human form to probably tell her that very thing, but before he could speak he was overcome with laughter. Laughter so high-pitched and rich that Aurora wondered if the entire kingdom could hear it.

Confused, she turned around.

She was far better capable of not laughing. Though she nearly lost it when Maleficent mused that pink was certainly _not_ Prince Philip's color.

"You can't say that until you've lightened my hair," Philip sassed back, tossing a wink towards Aurora as he turned to face Maleficent with his hands upon his hips and his head held high. Even in a dress, with the gold trim and the lace, he still held the air of regality around him. One Aurora was not sure she would ever learn.

"He's ...ahaha… he's got a point, Maleficent." Diaval struggled to catch his breath. "At least let us see him with the glamour truly there."

Maleficent clucked her tongue as she approached Philip. Her hands came up and the golden light of her magic spun in the air around the prince before sinking into his skin. His hair faded to the pale blonde that Aurora cherished about herself, and though it was obvious from the broad shoulders and the way he carried himself that Philip was certainly not a delicate princess, in the dark of the night, underneath a cloak and upon a horse, she was certain it would fool anyone desperate enough to hunt down girls for money and power.

Maleficent clucked her tongue a second time. "It will do."

Philip twirled. He twirled in place and tried his best to come to a complete stop and fix Aurora with a simpering look. "Now be kind my lady. What do you think?"

That was when the laughter broke through.

"Impossible little beast, you are as terrible as Diaval," Maleficent chided, eyes twinkling with a gentle mirth as she took her place at Aurora's side. She considered the pair of them. Philip more than her. She seemed to be wrestling with a decision, the conclusion reached with a snap of her wings outward.

She summoned the faery horse, stepping forward to press her forehead against his own. She spoke to him in a language Aurora only knew from her time with the wallerbogs, and pulled away when the horse nickered in return.

"He has agreed to carry you, knowing the risk."

"We both know the risk." Diaval had recovered from his laughing fit.

Maleficent's gaze was no less concerned as she contemplated Diaval. "You do not have to do this."

"No, but I want to. It will keep you and Aurora safe until you are in the Moors once again." He reached out for her hand and took it. "I will see you both soon. We will run towards the northern boundary, along the open fields. It would be easier to spy me in the air and Philip on the ground. If you take fight and go above the clouds, you'll be shielded."

"Not with that stormfront rolling in from the west, Diaval. It's not skirting south like we had thought."

"Fly as high as you can until the storm brings you low, then skirt the groves and copses until you reach the eastern forest. If anyone could fly true in a storm it's you, Maleficent."

Aurora saw the doubt in Maleficent's eyes and took the faery's hand in her own. "You said they never faltered, not even once, and that they took you into the strongest headwinds."

Maleficent's gaze traveled to their joined hands. She chuckled breathlessly, then cupped Aurora's face with her free hand, her thumb sweeping against Aurora's cheek. "I did say that." Aurora sensed Maleficent's courage rising and smiled.

Berend stepped forward, his own horse at the ready. "Then we ride and meet at the largest boundary stone in two night's time." He saluted Aurora, pressing a hand against his heart and stepped back to swing into the saddle and await Philip and Diaval. Though, before he pushed from the ground, he changed his mind. Instead, he grabbed a small object from the saddlebags and handed it to Aurora.

It was sheathed dagger, and heavy for something it's size. Suddenly nervous that it was iron, Aurora pulled the sheath free only to slump in relief as the blade gleamed a pale blue-green.

"It is bronze, Princess. So you may protect yourself without hindering the power of the fae. It will be safe to take wherever the fair folk walk."

Aurora looked to Maleficent for confirmation. She gave it, but the look Maleficent gave Berend was a mixture of gratitude and appraisement. Aurora slipped the dagger back into the lacquered wood casing and hooked it onto the belt she now wore. Her other items were safe in the small saddlebag she slung over a shoulder.

When Berend and Philip stepped aside to give the three space; Maleficent shifted to place the spell upon Diaval but Aurora was quicker. She turned and rushed into the raven's arms, hugging him tightly. It was a free gesture of emotion, and one that she could not express with Maleficent, even if the faery was affectionate in her own brusque way. Diaval, though, had never once been anything but kind and approachable, and he smelled of the sky and the trees as he hugged her close to him. He cupped the back of her head and carefully tugged her until they were eye to eye.

"Don't you worry Hatchling, when I get back to the Moors, we'll head down into the lowland fields to pluck blackberries like we promised." His black eyes gleamed in the night and his smile reminded her of the nights a raven kept company when she felt lonely.

"We better. If we wait any longer, they'll grow overripe."

"Not a day longer than two." He nuzzled her hair, a human mimicry of when he would do so as a raven, then let her go so Maleficent could perform the incantation. "I'll need to be as big as you, and have wings to make the disguise work."

"Any preferences, Diaval?"

He grinned. "Can't you just make me a bigger bird?"

She hummed in response, then her hand shimmered with magic.

Aurora believed that if she'd not known about the glamour, that the three rapidly retreating figures were her, Maleficent, and Berend. Though Maleficent had simply granted Diaval the shape of a man-sized raven, from a distance and with the weak light of the moon not yet hidden behind the clouds, he could be mistaken for the winged faery herself. And with the cloak and the way Philip hunched over the neck of the faery horse, Aurora was fooled for a second or two.

"I'm nervous." She admitted to Maleficent as the faery gathered Aurora into her arms.

"A natural response."

"Are you nervous?" Aurora lifted her head to search Maleficent's expression. Maleficent answered by taking to the air with one powerful downbeat of her wings. A second stroke and they were above the stalls. A third, and even the trees yielded the heights to them.

Aurora barely remembered the first flight to the Moors due to the exhaustion that sapped the energy from her. She did recall with fondness the second flight, where Maleficent had lingered in the air until sadness was just another memory, but tonight felt different.

The tension never left Maleficent's body since Aurora woke to her and Berend talking. It had only grown until the faery's body was as still and unyielding as stone underneath Aurora's touch. Even though Diaval had suggested climbing above the cloud cover, Maleficent did not rise much higher than the tall oaks. She had fallen silent too, her jaw clenched with the nerves she did not admit aloud to having.

Aurora found it was easy to forgive Maleficent's silence on the matter, though she had hoped the faery would lie and say everything would be all right.

"Can faeries lie?"

Maleficent's eyes flickered down to her face. "It depends on how you view it." Her hands shifted underneath Aurora's knees as she banked into a long turn that brought they into the sparse canopy of a grove of trees that were wicked shadows in the night, with branches that threatened to snag Maleficent's wings. "We can stretch the truth until it is little more than a figment of the original meaning, and we can dance around a subject as nimbly as the water nixes, but a faerie cannot, or, rather - should never lie."

"Why?"

"It is one of our deepest held beliefs. To say a lie as one would the truth is to forswear yourself."

"Then I will also never lie to you," Aurora said. She hoped it would bleed some of the tension from Maleficent's body. Declarations such as that always did so, right?

Instead, Maleficent's breath comes in a harsh, short laugh. "You are human, Aurora. You cannot keep such a promise."

And that hurt. The words slithered down into her heart and tightened like the thorns Maleficent used to divide the human lands from the Moorlands, and it's right at that moment, Aurora learned what shame felt like. Maleficent noticed, because the faery was keen-sighted, but said nothing because as Aurora knew…. faeries could not lie.

Aurora turned her face outward, studying the night that stretched underneath them. She tried to spot the distant storm that Maleficent and Diaval spoke of, and looked up into the wispy moonlight that was quickly disappearing behind the cloud cover. She looked and watched and focused on everything except for the cold beauty of the faery who carried her.

When the moonlight was swallowed up at last, the night was as dark as the feathers of Diaval's wing which made the torchlight that flickered on the road ahead of them all the more noticeable. Even with Aurora's human sight (human, how she hated what she was at that moment) the outline of four riders surrounding … surrounding something was apparent.  
"Can you fly lower?"

"Aurora, the entire point of this was to get you safely back home, not stop to see the sights."

"I don't want to stop, I just want to see -" She's cut off by a scream that pierced the night with a sharpness that clawed at her ears. She ducked her head away in reflex. Maleficent swayed in the growing wind, startled. "We should help her."

"We need to get to the Moors. I can protect you there."

"Who will protect her?" Aurora's gaze swiveled until she had locked Maleficent into a stare. "Answer that without dancing around the truth, Godmother."  
Maleficent's grip tightened, her eyes hardened, and she gained speed as she climbed higher into the sky, not lower.

A second scream, this one male. It wasn't an angry yell, but astonished and desperate.

"Godmother."

Nothing.

"Godmother!"

Maleficent steadfastly refused to look at her.

"They're after me. What if that was me down there?"

"You would never be put into that situation. I wouldn't allow it."

"Maleficent." Aurora stressed her name, drew it out in a careful plea. "Please. I'm begging you."

Aurora's scream was the third one to echo in the night as Maleficent's grasp faltered. The faery recovered before Aurora's heart could work through a sudden jump and then banked sharp into a lightning-quick dive that was as silent as the owl's flight.

They landed too far from the torch-bearing riders for Aurora's taste but when Maleficent released her and then commanded her to stay put, Aurora launched forward. "I can help!"

"You know nothing of battle, Aurora. You will serve only to hurt yourself."

"That isn't fair!"

Maleficent smiled, and the expression was painful to see. "It's the truth, Beastie."

Aurora called out her name as Maleficent whirled and dove into the battle. Her wings snapped forward and the sound drowned out the distant thunder, and snuffed the torches. It blinded the riders. It blinded Aurora, but the girl knew that the faery could see even when the world disappeared into nothing.

Men exclaimed. Men screamed. Horses whinnied and galloped into the night around Aurora. These were the sounds that Aurora remembered from the battle in the throne room, when Maleficent sent chandeliers toppling down onto unexpecting guards. The faery herself made no sound, gave away no sign of herself. She was silent and the shadows themselves.

And then it was over.

Magic came to light and bathed the skirmish in a pale green-gold light. Aurora knew why no one had challenged her father even if he had murdered her grandfather. Maleficent stood in the center of the road with the men crippled at her feet. They looked alive, but wounded. One's arm was bent at an unnatural angle, a terrible gash lacerating it from the top of his shoulder to his elbow. Something dark gleamed wet and sticky on the claws that crowned Maleficent's wings.

Nausea swirled in the bottom of Aurora's stomach. She pushed it down, down and deep until it was merely an uncomfortable pressure just underneath her ribs. She did not move forward until Maleficent nodded and gestured for her too.

Aurora did not hesitate, rushing towards the skirmish and side-stepping the fallen to approach the only survivor. The woman was a little older than she was and bent over the still body of a man who had hair as grey as ash. Blood oozed from his temple and the pallor of his skin was evident even with Maleficent's magic giving everything an unnatural glow.

"Is he breathing?" Aurora asked, coming to kneel in the grass by the woman.

"I … I don't know. They were … one minute we were riding towards Havern and the next … they were all around us and demanding I come with them." She did not lift her gaze from the man in her arms. "He tried to stop them but they hit him and he fell and - and…" she cut off. She swallowed painfully and looked towards Maleficent, then Aurora. "You saved my life."

"She did." Aurora swung her chin in Maleficent's direction.

"And you pointed them out to me," Maleficent returned the credit.

"Why were you out on the road so late?" Aurora inquired, already rummaging in the saddlebag for the clean kerchief she'd bundled the woodcarving into. She set the cloth against the man's head and applied gentle pressure. She remembered Auntie Knotgrass caring for their goat when he had caught his leg in the fence. There had been blood everywhere, but Auntie Knotgrass had simply torn a piece of her dress off and told Aurora to press firm against the wound as the woman went to make a paste to help with the infection.

"I'm Yennifer, the midwife. Harvel's daughter," she ran a hand soft along the man's arm, "had gone into labor early and something was … is going wrong."

Aurora turned to look at Maleficent. She asked with wide-eyes and a concerned frown.

Maleficent took one look at her and scoffed. "What? No. Aurora, I curse babies, I don't rescue them."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **I apologize for the long wait between chapters! A few minor family emergencies, two midterms, and a weekend convention all strove to keep me from updating. The schedule will return to being lively as the week goes on. Thank you for your patience! Also thanks to my mother who had to sit through me asking about midwifery without modern conveniences.

* * *

Despite a good five minutes of protesting that ensuring that Aurora survived past the first sixteen months in order for the curse to actually be worth merit and effort, the Princess was unconvinced with Maleficent's assertions about her interactions with infants, and so, with a very befuddled Yennifer looking on, and Harvel barely able to keep his hands closed secure upon the reins, Maleficent found herself on the edge of yet another small village in the human kingdom.

Naturally, Aurora brimmed with excitement in her arms and almost wriggled out before Maleficent's feet had touched the ground. The princess gravitated towards the horse that bore the two humans, and she was gentle hands and soft, encouraging words as she aided Yennifer in dismounting Harvel from his seat.

That should have been the end of it, Maleficent overseeing the ride to the farm on the outskirts of the village and the ensurement of Yennifer and Harvel to their destination, but the elderly man toppled onto the ground with one step. Without him, Yennifer did not have an assistant. She could ride into the village proper, but they had lost so much time already.

Maleficent was gladdened that Aurora did not volunteer her.

Maleficent was not as glad to discover the reason she was left unnamed was because Aurora herself volunteered instead. The faery barely mounted a proper refusal when Aurora's hair disappeared through the doorway, which left Maleficent outside with the woozy Harvel.

Oh yes, the next baby Maleficent encountered would receive a curse that went into effect sixteen hours after bestowment so she never had to deal with such a presumptuous, precocious child ever again.

"She dresses strange for a girl." Harvel peered up at her from underneath the sticky blood.

"We were fleeing bandits ourselves." Maleficent explained without a look his way.

"Bandits going after the Fair Folk?" He squinted her way. "Strange behavior for them. They actually used the Thorn Wall to their advantage."

"How so?"

Harvel shifted from one hip braced against the grass to the other. "Simple enough. The Thorns only react when they're actively threatened. Only folks stupid enough to cut faery magic were the King's Soldiers. Everyone else learned to just pass on by. So long as you didn't touch, you could run from the northern border to the south without ever crossing a checkpoint."

"Smuggling." Her voice went clipped and curt.

He shrugged. "Too old to work the mines. Too old to wield a blade, but I know how to pack so dogs cannot sniff out your secrets."

"What do you smuggle?"

Harvel sucked on his front teeth. "Depends on the run. Sometimes grain when a harvest went poor. Other times it's decent tools since the King took the scraps of iron for himself. "

"Neither of which sound as if dogs can ferret out the goods."

"Aye, true. The dogs are for the slaves."

Maleficent turned around slowly, uncertain if she heard him correctly. "Slaves?"

"You don't draft an entire kingdom's worth of men without consequences."

"Can your women not provide for themselves?" Maleficent thought of Gemma and the way she trembled as she fought to push a barrel upon the pile.

"They do what they can, sure, but there's a market for such a product and I need food on my table so my daughter can eat."

From inside the house, a wailing cry rose up, the sound of a mother in distress. Maleficent likened it to a troubled labor a deer had experienced a few springs earlier. She wondered if the woman inside would wind up as the doe had. It was the cruel side of nature, and one she long grown used to, but at the same time … she remained uncertain if she was willing for Aurora to learn the same lessons.

"I did not realize the Fair Folk were interested in the ways of men."

"Mm, not usually, no."

"Matter of fact, I haven't seen one of your kind 'cross the Thorns since my girl was about the age yours is."

"What is mine?"

"The bairn. Is she a Changeling?"

Maleficent frowned. Her wings swept forward, a breeze followed in their movement. Aurora could be considered a changeling in some light. Raised by faeries, away from human contact. Yet, her knowledge of the Moorlands only begun when she had left the impressionable years of humankind. Maleficent remembered Balthazar's tales of human children kept so long within the Moors, they had practically become like the springtouched fae.

"I did not mean to pry," Harvel broke her from her thoughts. She waved off the apology.

"I was considering my answer. The child is not mine, nor is she a Changeling. I am charged with her protection, however."

He grunted. In the house, the screams turned to gross sobbing breaths. It drew Maleficent's interests. "What do you think?"

"I think of many things, and then on many more beyond those thoughts." Maleficent's answer is dry. "If you are asking what I think of the occurings within your home; I cannot say. I do not read the future."

"Simply curse babies, aye?" He offered, a grin on his face. She reared around to berate him that cheek but saw no recognition in his eyes. He was parroting what she had told Aurora, nothing more beyond that.

"Generally."

Harvel grunted again and they allowed the trouble within the house to fill the silence around them. The torches flickered in the night breeze and above them the clouds rolled ever-onward. In the distance, Maleficent picked out the tell-tale flash of lightning and listened for the thunder that followed. Attempting to determine the distance and how long it would be before the storm came overhead made for more interesting fare than the labored affair occurring within the house.

The door clicked open behind them. Aurora looked exhausted, worry pinched her brow. "Are there any knots out here?"

Harvel glanced about but shook his head. "Only the ones keeping the horses tethered."

"Yennifier wants all of the knots untied." Aurora did not step outside. She had her head canted to the side as to better hear the women inside while looking out at them beyond the threshold.

"Why?"

Maleficent knew the reason and knew that explaining it to Harvel would only lead to a meandering discussion that would serve no purpose. There were certain secrets that men just were not meant to know. "Does the child move between contractions?" She inquired as she walked toward the door only to be balked when the thrum of iron forced her steps to a standstill.

Of course. An iron horseshoe above the door, and Maleficent was rather certain that a request to take it down would also result in another long winded discussion that would, again, serve no other purpose but to aid in her growing ill temperament.

"Is there a window near the mother?"

Aurora turned to repeat the first question to Yennifer before answering Maleficent's second. "Yes."

"Stand by it, Beastie." Maleficent whirled on the spot, spied Harvel's worried look, and moved on around the house to spy Aurora.

Maleficent was tall enough that it was a simple task to stare into the house and see the scene cast into the gold flicker of candlelight. Yennifer leaned over the mother, murmuring encouraging words as she rubbed what Maleficent noted as flaxseed onto the woman's belly. Aurora's eyes were frightened and dull as she stood, shifting from foot to foot right on the opposite side of the window.

"Yennifer, is the babe moving?" Maleficent called, drawing the midwife's attention.

"Weakly. She was strong at first but Adalia's had at least twenty contractions and still there is nothing. I cannot coax her to turn either." She gestured to the distended belly and Maleficent noticed the push of impossibly tiny feet against the top of the abdomen. "If I delay any longer -"

"Are both feet up near the babe's head? I cannot tell from here with the light."

Yennifer's hands stroked and pressed into the mother's belly, seeking out the answer. "Yes."

"Then she can deliver."

"The babe is -"

"You will not turn the head," Maleficent's wings arched up with her shoulders in a anxious shrug. "Place your hand low on her belly and find the babe's bottom. Aurora, you as well, Yennifer might need your hands to convince the child it wants to turn."

Yennifer looked ready to protest. Her body hunched with hours of tension and desperation. It was Aurora who came over from the window and rested a hand gently upon the woman's shoulder. "I have never seen a breech birth succeed."

"You will by the morning's light. If we dwaddle, though, then we will see only a funeral when the sun rises."

"... all right."

Aurora followed the instructions without fuss. She knelt near the opposite side of the mother and placed her hands where Yennifer said to. The two humans looked up to the faery for the next step. The mother, Adalia, only stared skyward and murmured wordless prayers to whatever spirits she put faith into.

"All right. This will be difficult. Adalia," Maleficent called to the mother first. "I know Yennifer has probably told you to resist the urge to bear down, but when the next contraction comes, you will follow instinct. Aurora, Yennifer; when she does this, gently push the babe at an angle."

"What will that do?" Aurora looked between Adalia and the window.

"Allow nature to take her course, if the spirits are with us tonight."

Adalia groaned, then sobbed. Maleficent watched as her knuckles turned white as she gripped the sheets beneath her. Hours of being told to resist had conditioned her to keep that pattern. She winced, breath leaving her in heavy, harsh gasps. Sweat beaded her brow. When a grimace contorted her features, Maleficent knew it was time to act.

"Now, Adalia. Bear down!" Maleficent ordered, the voice of command she used to bring forth defenders of the Moors and standing against the greed of kings. It worked then, and it worked now.

As Adalia finally pushed, Yennifer and Aurora manipulated the child through Adalia's belly, turning and guiding until Yennifer ran her hand up. "The babe's turned to the side!"

Yennifer hastened to settle between Adalia's spread thighs. She brought the candle carefully low as Adalia pushed. Everyone was silent save for Adalia. Then -

"I see the child!"

Maleficent felt relief like a summer's breeze waft over her. From the window, she guided Yennifer through every single step. When the babe's progress stilled, it was Maleficent's orders for Yennifer to carefully pull upon the child's leg until one foot escaped the confinement.

From there, the birth moved forward, though it was slower than it should be. "When you see the child's belly, Yennifer, twist her belly-down, face her towards the sheets. Aurora, fetch a cloth."

Yennifer did so with the next push. Now the race against time was a sprint, as the pressures of childbirth were bearing down completely upon the child's chest and head. If not done quickly…

Yet it seemed that Adalia's prayers were answered, for after the gentle tug and twist, the next push brought the babe from stomach to shoulders, and Yennifer's hands were gentle as they hooked about the babe's neck and guided the child the last inches into the world. Resting the baby's stomach on her other hand, the cloth between midwife and infant so Yennifer's grasp was firm and unyielding against the slippery nature of childbirth,, Yennifer carefully tilted the baby's bottom up until the child's face was visible. The cord was not wrapped around the child's neck, the babe's skin was flushed with a healthy shade of color, and as Yennifer instructed Aurora to fetch more cloth and water for the mother and child, Maleficent marveled how humans came into the world as bloody and violent as they experienced it.

Maleficent took one final look to the scene then returned around the house to Harvel.

The old man looked up at her through shaky hands.

"You have a granddaughter."

Though Adalia pleaded for them to remain until the morning, Maleficent's patience with the human world had reached its end. She reminded Aurora, with a tight jaw and gritted teeth, that Diaval and Philip rode off with the express intention of drawing away men who seeked nothing more than to kidnap her for ransom. When Aurora had struck up a petulant bargaining to linger a little while longer, Maleficent not-so-kindly reminded her that the longer she stayed in the kingdom, the more likely a woman would be harmed in the attempt to kidnap her. That led into a discussion about the group that accosted Yennifer and Harvel, and how the next group would not have a faery protector swooping down upon them to disrupt their harassments.

The first argument did little to convince Aurora. The second did enough that Maleficent felt guilty at pulling on strings to bring guilt to the forefront of Aurora's thoughts to win a battle of words with her. The third threw Aurora into a complying silence and a gesture for Maleficent to carry them away.

Maleficent had only spoken nothing but truth though and could not spend too much time dwelling upon the way Aurora stayed silent during the flight back to the Moors. They landed just within the boundary, before the marsh and lakes swallowed up the fields of flowers. Here, Aurora requested time alone and Maleficent granted it. Within the Moors, Aurora was as safe as she could ever be. The girl could not walk far enough within a day to approach the territories of the fae that even Maleficent deemed otherworldly. Still, Maleficent paused in her own travels to whisper soft to the storm nixes who were stirring eagerly for the oncoming tempest. She bade them to keep a distant eye on Aurora as humans were not meant for the elements; and as storm nixes prefered the high currents to anything earthbound, it would allow Aurora her space without being abandoned.

Maleficent herself strolled towards the marshes along the southern bend of the Moorlands, where the Border Guards stood sentinel within the bogs. It was there that the border guards were made and where they went when they were not needed elsewhere. Her destination was the giant oak that had fallen during a winter several decades before her parents were thought of, as that hollowed out shelter was where Balthazar made his home when he was not needed. She expected to wait up until the morning for him and found, instead, a conclave of the wood warriors curved into a crescent around the eldest of them.

The other Border Guards claimed that Eudeyrn came forth at the same time as the first great tree took root in the Moorlands. Maleficent was unsure of the validity of the statement, but the ancient sentinel had the appearance of having experienced nearly the entire span of creation. Eudeyrn's bark was bleached white from millennia underneath the sun and his body was riddled with the scratches and war wounds from countless lifetimes. Like all of his kind, Eudeyrn's eyes were dark and abyssal - even in the dark night, Maleficent could make out the hollows that served as the ancient being's gaze.

She bowed low and respectful three meters away from the gathering, unsure of if her presence interrupted something private. To her left, one of the marsh boars rooted against the trunks of the submerged trees in search of whatever sustained such a creature.

The sentinels swayed in position to face her and greeted her in their creaking language of wind and bark. The crescent pulled outward to welcome her into their midst.

"Hello Daughter of Lysander," Eudeyrn's 'face' was much like Balthazar's, stretched out to mimic a striking combination of faerie and stag. His crown of bark-antlers rose up and away as grand as the giant elk that roamed the distant wilds. Maleficent could hold her arms out wide and probably only manage touching the ends with the very tips of her fingers.

"A fair summer to you Eudeyrn. Are you awaiting Balthazar's return as well?"

"Yes." At Maleficent's concerned look, he shook his head. The movement was slow and ponderous. "For reasons that do not spell trouble. I simply traveled here to sink my roots into the marsh and listen to my saplings' journey-tales. There is even talk of bringing forth new feàrna."

"That would be a blessing to witness."

Eudeyrn acknowledged her words with a nod. "Sit with me, Daughter of Lysander."

Maleficent did so without complaint or question. She shuffled her wings so they were comfortable against the rough bark and tilted her head back so her horns did not catch upon Eudeyrn's own crown. Once she was settled, the ancient sentinel twisted toward her.

"What calls you to our home?"

Maleficent carefully retrieved the wrapped wood carving from her pouch protected underneath her robe and peeled away the cloth until the wood carving was bare. Above her, her magic coalesced into a luminescent disc that slowly spun in place. "I hoped he would understand what this meant."

Eudeyrn unfurled a hand in request and Maleficent granted it. She placed the carving within his palm and allowed him to bring it closer for inspection.

"Where did you find this?"

"Among the humans."

"Strange that they would have such a piece."

"I thought it looked like the language the Tuatha once used. Is it?"

"No. It is the language of the Firbolgs."

"The firbolgs?"

Eudeyrn leaned forward, gnarled hands tracing the carving in a pattern that suggested he was reading whatever story was etched into the wood. "Primordial gods that walked this land long before Danu woke to the stars above her."

"What happened to them?"

"The Tuatha. The wars upon Ériu's body shattered the tribes of the Firbolgs, but this carving speaks of a tribe that managed to survive the conquest. They fled to Alba and established a otherworld of their own in the soil toiled by man."

"You are speaking of the Moors?" Maleficent's lips twisted into a frown. "That does not make sense. The Moors came to be when Danu took a nap beside the great lake when she discovered that the Tuatha had been banished from Ériu. She wept in her sleep and her dreams of Tir Na nOg came to be around her."

"Aye, that is the tale we tell the young ones." Eudeyrn nodded without dismissing her explanation. "This carving speaks differently."

"Would you not know?"

Eudeyrn lifted his sightless gaze to her own. "The tree in this human carving is my own. It speaks of the Coille and what we were brought forth for."

"The protection of the Moorlands, is that not your purpose?"

Eudeyrn shook his head. This time the motion held the slightest touch of urgency to it. It reminded Maleficent of the way branches trembled in a mighty wind. "If this carving speaks truth, Daughter of Lysander, then the Coille were not meant to keep the Moors safe from beyond the Boundary Stones."

"Then what is your purpose?"

We were brought forth to keep something locked within them."


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I apologize for the long absence between chapter postings. School schedules, doctor appointments, a visit from the godkids, and a cold brought back from my girlfriend's vacation meant that the most I could do creative-wise the last few weeks was stare at a blank screen. I was going to post two chapters tonight, but chapter thirteen did not come out the way I wanted it to, and so I'm rewriting it to make my muse stop throwing a fit.

The Druid Code in this chapter comes from a certain media, and if someone can pick it out, then you're probably as old as I am :D

Once again, a million thanks to those that favorite/review. It means a lot to me to see the notifications and while a writer should write for the sake of appeasing the hungry maw inside of them; that there are people interested in what I'm writing is ...a very exciting feeling.

* * *

The storm descended on the Moorland with a strength that shook the boughs of the Great Trees and sent the lesser fair folk underneath their respective shelter. While not the first of the summer storms, this one was intent on leaving an impression before it rolled south and turned into a mild downpour. The storm nixes fluttered down when the first of many fat raindrops splattered over the wide petals of the whispersweet flowers and coxed Aurora up and away from the prone-to-flooding Moorland marsh and up along a winding craggy path until they guided her into a cavern protected by a stretch of rocky outcropping. From within, Aurora watched the rain backlit by the snaps of lightning as the sheet of water went vertical to horizontal with the wind.

The light inside was given up by fireleaf, a plant Maleficent showed her during the coldest part of winter. The plant's natural inclination to give off heat and light made it a welcomed substitution for actual smoke and flame in a season where dry kindling was rare. It's against the fireleaf crawling up along the rock like ivy that Aurora rested, hands filled with the fruits of her wandering. She watched the sky split open, spilling bright light over the world before the darkness swallowed the Moors, and wondered what would Maleficent had told her to explain the violent clash of nature.

The thought of the lithe fairy caused Aurora to scowl around a bite of blackberry. She'd forgotten that she was mad with the faery. No. Not mad. It was a tighter feeling that stung just underneath her breastbone like the time she'd fallen from a rotted branch high in one of the oaks that sheltered the cottage. She'd been chasing Diaval, climbing higher and higher to steal back the spool of ribbon he'd snatched from her hands, but she'd misjudged the strength of one limb and tumbled back to earth with enough force that her lungs felt bruised from the inside out.

This feeling felt like that and it lingered, stuck to her ribs like molasses.

Before they'd encountered Yennifer on the road, Aurora felt shame roll through her much like the summer storm, but it dissipated when they'd arrived at the farmhouse. Somber moods never stayed for long, but this felt different.

Tucked into the cliff with little more than the light of cave moss, Aurora thought on her journey into the human world and marveled at the sights she saw there. Philip had been eager and kind enough to show her much of what he enjoyed. A minstrel show, a joust set to the colors of the setting sun, a dance around a bonfire crackling merrily. Surrounded by people who were shedding the stress of a kingdom free from the yoke of a tyrant, Aurora had been swept away by the emotion of the crowd. None of it could match the sheer beauty and wonder that the Moors offered, but it held its own charms all the same.

She wanted to explore the kingdom, wanted to uncover the daily lives of its inhabitants as eagerly as she explored the Moors at Maleficent's side.

The dark faery's presence in her thoughts dimmed the brightness of Aurora's thoughts like a candle caught in a quick breeze. Aurora's mood grew grim as she recalled the rebukes of Maleficent. The first at the festival, then before they aided Yennifer, and then when Adalia's babe had quieted enough to be placed at her mother's breast for a first meal.

It's not that Aurora was ignorant or callous! Really! She just wanted Maleficent to like the part of Aurora's life that was outside the (what she felt) still-there Wall of Thorns. She felt as if it had only been taken down in a physical sense, yet still surrounded Maleficent as some sort of invisible shield.

She remembered Maleficent's story about her father, and could read between the lines with a quicker grasp of wit than she thought either the faery of Diaval gave her credit. She guessed Maleficent's dislike of the human kingdom stemmed in part from a fear that it would steal Aurora away as it had the young boy that Stefan once had been.

"Well," Aurora said to herself after she took a moment to suck clean the blackberry juice from her fingers. "I'll just have to show her that I'm different."

The storm rumbled as if in approval.

~.*.~

The dream disappeared with her awakening and left her with curious thoughts about the trees and whispering words on the wind. Aurora opened her eyes to the grey stained morning and the shadow of bark and antlers that stood upon the soaked ground below her shelter.

"Oh, hello Balthazar," she said, voice scratchy from sleep. "Are you looking for Maleficent?"

The great head shook.

"You were looking for me?"

Balthazar nodded, the creak of his body audible even from the distance between them.

"Oh, all right then." Aurora stretched. Her legs complained once with the movement, then quieted as blood returned to properly circulating throughout her limbs. She made sure that her retreat from the small cave would spare the fireleaf any untoward bruising, and winced as her foot slipped on rocks still wet from the rain.

Her ankle twinged and she was careful the rest of the path down, favoring her other leg until she was flat footed on grass that squelched between her toes. She tested the injury and smiled in relief when she could place weight back on it.

All through this Balthazar waited with the patience of the forest. He beckoned for her to follow him when Aurora confirmed that there was no lasting harm done to her ankle. The pair walked west, toward the boundary with the human kingdom. Aurora removed her slippers somewhere between the Wallerbog's favorite muddy creek and the overgrown barrow protected by a rather unpleasant spriggan, who leaned out from a cracked pillar to leer as Aurora passed by.

She carried her slippers in hand as Balthazar stopped just before the boundary, where the no-man's land left from the years of thorns had been churned to mud was visible through the thick undergrowth of the Moorland; he turned north to where the forest began to claim ground from the lowland marsh. Here, the trees grew taller than Aurora could crane her neck to spy and were wider than she could hope to possibly wrap her arms around. They walked further until they came to a grove of rowan trees. These were nothing like the Great Tree that Maleficent nested in, but the grove claimed a small clearing in the woods for themselves.

Aurora looked to Balthazar for clarification on what to observe or discover here. Across the Moorland and in the human kingdom, there were plenty of groves. Was there something special here? The sentinel approached the center of the grove, where the little bit of light that made it down to the forest floor settled, and waited for her to do the same.

The forest woke up around them as Aurora waited for whatever it was that Balthazar wanted to show her. Birds chirruped in the branches, and the crack of twigs and the rustle of plants announced the coming and going of wildlife that Aurora couldn't see. There was the softest of hums as the insect world roused for the day, and if Aurora strained her hearing, she could follow the babbling brook that detoured away from the great lake.

She became so absorbed in her listening that Balthazar's careful grasp of her palm caused Aurora to startle, a nervous laugh escaping her before she could stop it. His hand was rough on her own, the bark jagged and catching even with his gentle ministrations. He turned her hand palm-side up, gesturing that she should splay her fingers wide.

He pointed at her with his free hand, spoke one word in that ancient language of his, and then pressed carefully on her palm with a finger. First against the meaty bit centered between her thumb and her wrist, then at the base of her middle finger. He tapped the second pad of her smallest finger before the next touch came to the base of her index finger before the final touch landed exactly where he began.

Curiosity furrowed Aurora's brow.

Balthazar went through the motions again, pointing first at her, speaking that creaking word second, then tapping out that pattern on her hand third. He repeated the process two more times before it became clear.

"My name!"

Balthazar nodded in approval, rumbling laughter shaking his antlers. He pointed to himself, said another word, then spelled it upon Aurora's palm. This time it took two repetitions. "Your name?"

Another nod.

They went back and forth. Balthazar pointing at objects, or speaking and spelling out the words that Aurora suggests. Aurora quickly picked up the tapping on her hand connecting to letters, but it took longer until she could easily connect the touch at specific points equating to specific letters. The only obstacle was when she tried to spell her name on her own hand in the beginning, only for Balthazar to block her. He shook his head and spoke in the low timbre Maleficent once told her was a warning note.

After that she fetched fallen rowanberries and used the juice from those she crushed to paint the letters onto her name. With the stains, she worked through the common letters and those that did not come up in casual look-and-speak, she simply went down the list until her hand was covered in her known alphabet.

The second time she went to spell her name, she asked Balthazar's permission first. He studied the berry juice on her palm, then gave his approval. He watched as Aurora pressed the tip of her right index finger along the pattern of her name and when she finished with a gentle nudge to the point between her thumb and wrist a sense of … well, truth shivered through her bones.

A musical language sang to her from the haven of the outermost rowan trees. Maleficent came into view as the faery language resonated in the grove. "In the old tongue that we taught humans it is called _An Cód Drui, _in the common tongue that your people now use, it is simply the Druid's code."

"Druid?"

"Priests of men who spoke the language of the land and were the most learned among the kingdoms. They were mediators between faery and human, and oftentimes between human and human." Maleficent did not enter the ring of trees; instead she favored a slow walk around the outside. "From the stories I heard growing up, druids faded from power as the Saints came from the south, carried on the wings of the iron eagle. Your human captain, Berend, might know more about this than the oral traditions of faery."

"What is the Code for?"

"As you have noticed, Balthazar cannot speak your langauge, nor can you speak his. You might, after many years, learn to understand pieces here and there, but the human mind was not made to follow the river of words that is faery. At best, there is the go-between of the Gaels but even that is dying among your people."

Aurora remembered Gàidhlig from the lessons that Aunt Thistlewit gave on the days she'd deemed an education warranted. They usually followed a day that Aunt Flittle caused Aunt Knotgrass to puff up like a disgruntled hen during a fight and the two were locked in a battle that forced Aurora and the most mellow of her aunties out into the garden.

"When the kingdoms of the humans were little more than tribes scattered across the Highlands, the Borderguards and the Druids came up with a language that was not spoken, but conveyed through touch."

"Oh," Aurora looked down at her hand. "Why did it feel right to spell my name then?"

"Patience Beastie, every good lesson should have a tale woven through it. Unless you learned how to pay attention the pixie way?" Maleficent's lips quirked upward, the lip stain as dark as the crushed rowan berries on Aurora's hand. "Now, at first, the Druid's Code was simply a bridge between worlds. With it, faery and humans could communicate beyond the fumbling of words. We learned from the Druids, and they from us. It became something much more when the warriors of the eagle came north on a sea of red and gold."

"Who were these warriors?"

"I do not know the name they hold in human history, only the memories of the Sentinels and the stories of the spriggans," Maleficent paced a third circle around the outside. "When these battles rose up, the warriors knew to attack the _drui_ first, somehow understanding that the druids were the keystone to their tribes and to the alliance between man and fae. The druids were teachers and lawmakers, not soldiers, and even the harsh landscape could only slow the red tide so long. So the Code evolved."

"Evolved?"

Maleficent nodded to Balthazar, who then pressed a new word into Aurora's hand. He pressed it again, and then a third time. Then he waited for her to spell it back to him.

Aurora's eyes left Balthazar to watch Maleficent who paced still outside the grove. When neither gave her any indication of continuing unless she spelled the word, her attention ducked to her palm and she did so. She tapped the tip of her index finger for 'L', then the base of her middle finger for 'U', then the base of her smallest finger for 'I', and then the tip of her ring finger for 'S'. _Luis._

As the word rang in her mind, she felt her body change. Gone was the golden laurel of her hair and the paleness of her skin, replaced by the bark and branches of the slender rowan trees around her. She felt her feet become roots and she could taste the sweetness of the soil she had sunk into.

And all along the edge of her awareness came the softest of whispers, welcoming and friendly in their way. Words were not exchanged, but emotions were, and Aurora learned that those who surrounded her were the trees. The trees! She was a tree. How could she be a tree? She was a human girl and her name was not Luis, it was Aurora!

The wind whistled along her branches and she could feel the faint touch of sunlight upon the crown of her leaves, and then all too soon she was flesh and blood again, her body her own and the need to breathe something foreign to her body.

"What … was that?" She asked, eyes wide.

"Protection." Maleficent stared at her with the same awe Aurora remembered seeing upon waking from the curse. It's disbelief mingled with wonderment and she grew curious as to what magic she defied this time. "The druids tended the sacred groves and the sacred groves tended to them in turn. You felt right when you spelled your name because it was your true name. At your Christening, you were bestowed with yours and as long as you remember it, no enchantment can steal away what makes you, you."

"...but I turned into a tree." She frowned, because that sentence sounded odd. "I did turn into a tree… right?"

"Yes, Aurora. Within the sacred groves, if you trace the name of the trees into your palm, they will shelter you as one of them until whatever danger you're fleeing from has left. Merely think of your true name and you will return to your true self."

Aurora stared her hand with a newfound light. "This is …"

"A gift." Maleficent interrupted her. "A belated one, for your birthday. A reminder that you belong in both worlds, faery and …" her voice caught, tearing into a higher octave. "And ...human. Faery and human."

"Godmother…" Aurora rose to her feet and took a step forward.

Maleficent took a shaky step back, much like that first night they met. Her eyes went wide and nervous like a deer and Aurora braced for the golden sweep of sleeping magic to fall over her. Only it didn't. And only Maleficent's wings remained inviting, half-furled in a lazy demeanor to soak up what little sunlight poured onto the forest floor.

Their laissez-faire attitude of wings still so new to the dance of their relationship was not enough for Aurora to ignore the clear warning Maleficent gave off. Her first step turned into her last and she did her best to smile from the distance between her and her godmother. She rocked on her heels, hands clasped before her.

"If you are to have friends in the human kingdom, Aurora, then a simple query during a handshake will point them out to you. Any one human who was trusted by faery enough to be taught this will be a friend to you." Maleficent's words were clipped, faster than her usual speech. Aurora figured it was still nerves, but she could not understand why the faery would be nervous around her. The faery's hand fluttered up near her throat, and the jittery movement floated down through her body until Aurora watched the tip of flight feathers quiver. "Now. I spent the night with Balthazar's … I suppose the best translation would be elder - and they invited you to watch an awakening ceremony. Would you wish to do so?"

"Yes." Aurora took her second step toward Maleficent now that she felt it was safe to do so, but halted a second time. She returned to Balthazar's side and picked up his hand. As he queried her actions, she spelled out 'thank you' into his hand before she darted to the offered opening underneath Maleficent's wing.


	13. Chapter 13

Aurora walked at her side underneath a wing unfurled lazily off one shoulder, keeping to the shadow of the feathers hovering over her but without the closeness that accompanied their usual walks through the Moorlands. Maleficent knew not if the distance was from the argument the night before or if the presence of her wings extended the aura of safety Aurora felt while near the faery.

She did not seek out an answer though, and enjoyed the quiet for what it was worth. The sounds of a Moorland summer were strange to her after seventeen years of bitterness and she listened to the conversations of the flora and fauna as if they were the most interesting pieces of knowledge she could lay her hands on. It was pleasing to hear the notes of joviality and the plans for festive gatherings as she passed by, and her heart constricted with painful fondness when invitations were extended to herself and Aurora.

It would take time - years, even - but Maleficent grew certain that the Moors would heal from the tyranny of her vengeance, and perhaps, following that, she would heal too.

"Aurora, you've received at least three invitations, are you not going to accept a single one?" She glanced down to her young charge and found the girl lost in thought and muttering under her breath. She tapped her hand as they walked and Maleficent could catch the words. One word, detailing the spiral of vines that climbed up the trunk of the alder trees, had been misspelled, and as habit had formed on their walks, Maleficent corrected Aurora.

When her fingers brushed over the spaces of Aurora's upturned palm, the princess startled and stared up at her with wide eyes. Aurora flushed pink, the color staining her cheeks and blossoming down the column of her neck.

"Well, Beastie?"

"I'm sorry, what was the question?"

Maleficent laughed, soft to steal away any sting of teasing from doing so. "You have been requested by at least three of your favored friends here to go accompany them on an afternoon's revelry."

"Have I?" Aurora peeked around to discover that her and Maleficent's stroll had been indeed surrounded by the familiar faces of those fair folk who she loved to pass the days with when Maleficent's duties took her from Aurora's side. "I suppose I hadn't noticed."

"That much is obvious to anyone looking upon you." Maleficent's attention went back to the path into the bogs. Seventeen years of walking had fostered a need to learn efficient passage through the usually inaccessible Moorlands and discovering the trods was a trick she'd never truly mastered. She'd grown up with wings, mighty and wonderful and had never saw the need to learn how the deer whispered through the woods as silent and quick as the wind. Until the day that she found she'd laxed on a very important lesson. "So?"

"Oh. Maybe another night?" Aurora directed this to one of the more hopeful of the hedgehog-fae. "I'd already promised Maleficent to accompany her to a …" Aurora's head tilted up. "What was it called again, Godmother?"

"It is called many things by many more people."

"That is not very helpful." Aurora's mouth pursed into a thin line, and perhaps when she grew older, the expression would hold the severity needed to chastise Maleficent; but all it served right now was to grant Maleficent another reason to smile.

"You did not exactly specify what you wanted me to describe for you. I am not a mind-reader Aurora." She canted her head, chin lifted up in faux-indignation.

"The Awakening Ceremony! Or, that's what you called it." Aurora stopped their walking to duck down to the hedgehog's level. "I am traveling with Maleficent to the Awakening Ceremony."

"The Coille are blooming again?" The hedgehog addressed this to Maleficent herself, and the powerful faery nodded in response. He looked back to Aurora again, wide amber eyes alight in excitement. "Oh, well that is a far grander celebration than a supper of honey and sweet-thistle! Go go go! Mayhaps we'll all come to watch as well?" This last bit was slow, and directed back towards Maleficent.

"It is the blooming of the feàrna, so if you can find the grove I am certain you'll be welcomed." Maleficent bestowed her permission in the form of a challenge and she expected the questions before she believed they'd entered Aurora's thoughts.

"The feàrna are brought forth from the boughs of the alder tree," she explained. She gestured for them to turn slightly to the left as the trod towards the southern bogs finally revealed itself to her. "The alder is well-sought for their protection. It is from their wisdom that young faeries learn the ways to keep hidden. It was feàrna that whispered the knowledge to the first druid who took the Code and brought down the faery magic around his own form."

Aurora studied her hand, the stain of the berries vivid to Maleficent's sight. "Are there different ...um … Coille?"

"Yes, as there are as many different trees in the forest. Each of the Coille is given to a role designated from the tree they are brought forth from and they are bound to the tree that bloomed."

Aurora looked about the trees around them. "So every tree…?"

"Not every tree." Maleficent shook her head. "I do not even understand myself the balance of the Coille for it is even in their name for themselves. The Forest. You cannot separate them from the trees and yet unless invited, you will never know which trees have bloomed."

"So if the King had won and the lumberjacks were allowed into the Moorlands…" Aurora trailed off, a disgusted shiver racing down her spine violently enough that Maleficent spotted it. "When I am Queen I could make a decree that lumber from any of the forests is not to be used -"

"Will you be making that same demand of the beaver? Asking her to no longer build dams for her young? Or what about the stag who rubs his antlers against the trees, or eats their bark in the winter when there is nothing else?" Maleficent shook her head slowly. "Teach moderation, young Aurora, and teach renewal. Humans do have a tendency to take what they will without consequence but …" here she touched gentle fingers upon the stiff curve of Aurora's shoulder. "I think that is a habit that can be broken."

The gentle assurance did not have the effect Maleficent hoped. Instead of it easing away the tension that now wound through Aurora like a choking vine, the young girl closed up further, clenching her open palm to her side in a fist and bowing her head as if under the weight of a thousand burdens.

This would not do.

Maleficent stopped. Her body turned towards Aurora and her other wing came forward until it hovered just on the other side of the girl's body, a hesitant shelter to grant them privacy from the denizens of the Moors that had not disappeared when Aurora revealed her afternoon's plans. "Aurora, look at me."

Aurora shook her head. Stubborn little Beastie.

Maleficent frowned, not exactly pleased with being ignored and crouched down much like Aurora had earlier to break up the difference in height. "Aurora." She called the girl's name with a crooning note that implored answer.

Finally, watery blue eyes shyly looked into her own.

"I would hope you understand that when I speak of humans, I do not ...include you in those thoughts." Maleficent's words came slow at first as she thought on what she wanted to say. How did she assure the girl when she was still rather unsure herself? "However," she held up a hand when Aurora went to speak. "However, I am realizing that such a generalization hurts you because you are human. I know that I would be distraught if you generalized me with the pixies because we were both of the fair folk."

That brought a faint upward twist to Aurora's lips, a smile fought to be suppressed underneath a somber mood.

"I will strive to speak differently from now on." Maleficent waited for Aurora to nod and accept her apology. She thought she worded it fairly well. Though as she waited, another thought crossed her mind. "You have been sorrowful since you were woken, and that concerns me."

"You mean Aunt Flittle's wish?"

"I do."

"I haven't felt blue, Maleficent."

Maleficent knew she fixed Aurora with a look that made even Diaval cow. "What is this then? Tears of happiness?" She kept the look even when Aurora averted her own to the side.

"I'm not sad -" Aurora glanced up, sharp and quick when Maleficent scoffed. "I'm not! I'm mad."

"You're ...mad."

"Yes."

Maleficent's wings quivered as she thought on that. "I don't understand."

"I wish I wasn't human." Aurora kept the gaze this time., cornflower blue eyes focused far more serious than was custom for her. "I wish I'd been born like the fair folk or not at all because -"

"Because all you know of humans is through the legacy of your father." Maleficent cut in; she found herself playing the role of the devil's advocate once again. "Aurora, there is no shame in your heritage."

"You hate humans."

"I…" Maleficent stopped herself from speaking either truth or falsehood and instead went with what she believed would stem the flow of this conversation until she could think further upon the topics it dug up or disappeared underneath Aurora's quicksilver attention span -she hoped for the latter. "My parents believed in a potential for harmonious coexistence with humans and there are many legends of humans invited and stolen away to the Otherworld because they were simply so enchanting that faeries could do nothing but want them forever. For every cruelty of your kind, there is a grand kindness. For every one of your fathers … I must believe there is yourself."

Aurora looked dubious. "Faeries steal people?"

"Some do, yes." Well, this had not been the way Maleficent wanted the conversation to go, but if it stepped away from the uncomfortable discussion about humanity and what Maleficent felt about them on the whole … she would accept it.

"Why?"

"Many reasons, so I'm told. Some of those reasons are 'noble': love, protection, friendship. Others are more selfish. Some faeries see humans as little more than amusement and perhaps manual labor. You have seen the Moors only one year, Aurora, and underneath my Charge. All the evil I have caused out of hatred and revenge is merely droplets in the oceans of cruelty that some of my brethren hold."

Aurora's expression bore disbelief and Maleficent knew not of a way to make her see the truth without bringing her to a harm that would make a sleeping curse a wonderful dream in comparison. Their arrival to the inner sanctum of the Coille stopped further conversation and the questions that were growing in Aurora's thoughts were set aside for the pageantry of the Moors.

"We're here."

~.*.*~

Introducing Aurora to Eudeyrn banished most of the earlier gloom. The ancient Coille knew the language that the pixies had inadvertently spoken around Aurora, teaching the young girl how to speak to the faeries of the Moors as well as to her own fellow man. The two had paired off immediately, Eudeyrn escorted Aurora among the Coille and introduced them with names she could learn to pronounce with time and practice. Maleficent watched from afar, from the shadows cast off by the hollowed log. She smiled at the picture the two made; Eudeyrn's antlered head bowing low to listen to something Aurora asked, and Aurora's head tilted as far back as it could go to try and meet the ancient Coille's gaze. Next to Maleficent, a slender seileach Coille wove together a crown of vines and flowers, humming low in the language of the forest. Her bark was the reddish-brown of a willow tree at sunset, mottled and decorated with symbols of her status among the others. She had no antler of boughs, but rather a crown of leaves that gave the appearance of hair as long as Maleficent's own.

"Is there reason why it has been feàrna chosen?" Maleficent turned to the seileach.

The slender willow shook her head. "Eudeyrn has given no reason yet."

"He chose?"

"He always does. Whatever is needed among the Coille, he will call forth." The willow reached out and patted Maleficent's hand. "When it is a time of war, the Duir are called."

"Where as the feàrna are secretive, but I have brought down the Wall of Thorns willingly. The Moors are no longer hidden from contact with the human kingdom."

"Sometimes you need a secret keeper to uncover secrets, Maleficent." The willow finished with her woven crown and set it upon Maleficent's head, slanted around one horn. It was impossible for her to smile, but Maleficent could see the mischief as clear as a summer's sky.

"What secrets?" Maleficent searched her memory for strangeness in the Moors.

The willow laughed. The sound reverberated through her body and came forth like the rushing of wind through a crown of leaves. She did not answer Maleficent, only shrugged and turned her attention to the gathering of the Fair Folk that appeared from the forest around them.

Maleficent frowned with her departure. Surely a simple human artifact was not enough to call forth the arrival of new trees when the ranks of the Coille had been constant almost all of Maleficent's lifetime? She remembered the only other ceremony she'd been aware of; she'd just turned her first decade and the winter had been hard, even for those who dwelt within the relative balance of the Moors. In fact, it had been the arrival of the willow that Maleficent witnessed, the tree's association with renewal and fertility needed in the mournful spring of that year.

She supposed, with a wry acknowledgement, that in this area of the Moors, she would be as new to the events as Aurora was.

And when the girl's name crossed her mind, so too did the girl cross her path. Dress hiked up above her ankles, mud and water staining the fabric regardless, Aurora beamed towards Maleficent and Maleficent found that she returned the smile, though hers was less radiant.

"Have you ever seen something like this before Godmother?"

"Once, when I was younger than you."

"Was it much like today?"

Maleficent looked upon the coaxed boughs of the ancient forest, the heavy crowns of the oak and pine brought low to bring upon a strong cast of shadow to the otherwise sunny afternoon. Underneath their leaves, the bogs felt cloistered within mist, and Maleficent curved her wings about her body to ward off what she perceived as a chill. No, this was nothing like the jovial brightness of that willow's arrival; with the sun glittering upon the dancing brook like a thousand jewels. That day, the air filled with a music that uplifted the spirits and brought forth a stirring that took Maleficent several more years to even discover what it meant. She remembered asking Knotgrass and watching the pixie laugh in that adult manner, with a thrown in 'you'll understand later'.

No, this was nothing like then.

"Godmother?"

Maleficent returned her attention to Aurora. "Each one of the Coille has their own ceremony. Whatever we may witness tonight will have little to do with the summoning of another. I saw the blooming of the Willows, but the blooming of the Alder is new to me."

"Then we'll watch it together!" Aurora's voice rose with the happiness of that announcement. As was becoming quickly common, the girl's mood could not remain gloomy for long. She was the sun unconcerned with the clouds before it. "What do you think it will be like?"

"Well, what do you know of the trees?"

Aurora gave her a funny look, a cross between the disbelief of Diaval and the suspicious squint the pixies gave each other whenever the cabinets rattled. Maleficent schooled her own features until Aurora decided for herself that the faerie was serious (she was!).

"Not much beyond what you taught me over the winter," Aurora answered.

"Ah," Maleficent nodded. "Then we shall watch this with no words to cloud your perceptions and then afterwords, we will see what you've learned." She stepped around Aurora and went forth to claim them a spot to sit so the growing crowd of the fair folk did not hinder their viewing. Her smile grew when Aurora stomped a foot before following her.

* * *

A/N: Little reason for the delay save for school swamping over me and, well, folks drug me back into WoW. As always, read and review and thank you very much for your patience!


	14. Chapter 14

The marsh soaked through the layers of cloak and dress but Aurora was not bothered by the damp or even the chill that came with it. She was too focused upon the disappearance of the light. She could see the sun if she squinted, could watch while it danced, draped in dappled glory beyond the boundary of green. She swore it was a trick of her sight but every time her eyes darted away to watch a new arrival or to study the ponderous movements of Eudeyrn, when she looked back to the distance, the trees moved - branches that were upright and proud suddenly slung low and stretched out to shadow the clearing inside their curved boughs.

Aurora rubbed absently at the rowan-berry stain on her palm, and felt a need to fidgeting creep up her spine. It crawled like a spider from the small of her back to settle, legs spread over the nape of her neck to send the pins and needles down into her arms.

Maleficent must have noticed, for the faery reached one hand down to settle just at the curve of Aurora's shoulders. The touch offered stability that Aurora's mind could lean upon and she took it without complaint.

"The Coille experience time beyond our perception of such things," Maleficent explained. "One shouldn't ask them for a sudden decision for even one of the fae would be old and grey before the answer is given." Maleficent opened into a conversation as the marsh buzzed with the low murmuring of the crowd.

"Never?"

Maleficent hesitated, then gave her a reconsidered answer. "Usually 'never'. I believe this is an exception, really."

"Why?"

"Curious little beastie." A smirk slipped over the corner of Maleficent's mouth.

"Yes." Aurora nodded firmly at the statement.

Maleficent let her stew with the question until just before Aurora begged her to stop teasing and just answer. "It deals with the carving you gave me."

"Why?"

Maleficent's eyes sparkled jade with her amusement but she answered Aurora still. "It tells a different story than what we're taught growing up here."

Aurora scanned the clearing for the carving until she spotted it held tight in Eudeyrn's grasp as the ancient tree conversed with a rider upon a boar. The boar-rider dipped low in his saddle to hear whatever the elder Coille said. "What does the carving say?"

"Something …" Maleficent hesitated again and Aurora watched the muscles of her jaw work. "Intriguing - I suppose that's acceptable - intriguing enough to garner the quick action of a people who see the seasons of a year as we do hours in a day."

Aurora huffed. "That's as close to a lie as you can get, isn't it?"

"Be careful, Beastie. I still have some wrath that can be roused." Maleficent's voice curved as low as the light around them and, to Aurora, the tone was as threatening as the rippling pond after a rain. Maleficent's horns threw dark shadows that stretched over the fallen tree that served as their seat for the ceremony, black on black; if Aurora squinted and forgot all that Maleficent was to her; she could understand on the vaguest of levels how Maleficent could be frightening.

To someone else. Never to her.

Her musing must have registered somehow because it caused a ruffled indignation in her faerie companion. Aurora watched as the Protector of the Moors went through several moods, from pouting to plain disgruntlement until she settled on indifferent.

"Well?" Aurora prompted.

"Oh very well, it will save me from your troubling knack to disturb what should be kept sleeping."

"I didn't realize that those were slumbering snapdragons!" How many times would Maleficent bring up a simple mistake from what was ages ago (truly only a few months)? It was not as if Aurora intended for the hibernation of the temperamental flowers to end early. They'd bit her on the wrist, the wound immediately flared with painful toxin and it'd forced Maleficent to scour the Moorlands to rouse one of the Coille that slept through the snow-covered days. Flowering trees and their guardians shared a distaste for the cold and infertile season.

"Yes, the needle-like teeth most definitely did not give them away." Maleficent's smirk spread wider as Aurora's frown deepened. Aurora glared at the faerie until Maleficent inclined her head to indicate the teasing had passed and the topic veered back to the previous one. "The carving suggested that the Collie were not made as Protectors for the Moorlands - though they certainly showcase that skill well enough - but as Wardens. Jailors, if you will."

"Jailors for what?" Aurora looked around the clearing. "Not the fair folk, surely?"

"No. Well…" Maleficent was already shaking her head even as she began to speak. "No. The fair folk might be served better by keeping most interactions with the human kingdoms to a minimum due to grievances and a rather unkind history," Aurora could tell that Maleficent tried to keep her personal bias out of her explanation and smiled at the faery to encourage her. "That said, the Collie have never barred entrance or exit for human or fae, save for when I brought up the Thorns."

"So they serve you."

"No," answered Maleficent, but she looked dissatisfied with her answer. Not, Aurora figured, from the lack of servitude, but the lack of a proper response to give. Maleficent rounded her neck to stare into the growing throng of the Collie, golden eyes level upon them; assessing and mindful like Aurora pictured wolves to be when they were tracking prey.

"Balthazar responses when you ask him things, and you said they answered your call to arms when King Henry sought to charge into the Moors." Aurora deliberately avoided the reminder that said King was her grandfather. It was rare enough when Maleficent sat still to answer questions deemed too difficult for casual conversation and Aurora did not want to end it early with bad memories.

"Yes." Maleficent answered in a far-off manner. "Though the answer to your question is one I do not think I can properly give because I do not know it. Yes, they respond to my call but is that because I am the strongest of the fair folk here, or for another reason?"

"You said there were others like you?"

"Of course there are," Maleficent reared around to stare her way once again. Cat-like in her offense. Offense at what, Aurora did not know.

"Can you ask them?"

Maleficent shook her head and answered before Aurora could protest the refusal. "I do not know how to find them save that they dwell far deeper in the Moors than I care to travel. I know where the boundaries of their magic lie for it is a radiant thing to behold but to speak with them?" She shook her head again. "Is a task I have never accomplished."

"Why haven't you tried to?"

"Because as daunting as it should be for someone as young as you to converse with me…" Maleficent squeezed her shoulder, "it is an even grander accomplishment to work up the strength to approach someone who knew the world when there were no words for any creature or plant save for the names that the wind and the rain bestowed upon them." Maleficent worked her lower lip between her teeth, a mannerism for when she was hovering on the brink of discussions she tended to dislike. "I might have shirked much of my training growing up and did my best to avoid traveling with Balthazar to make formal greetings."

"My …"

"Stephen, yes." This time, the name only caused a flicker of pain and guilt to race through her eyes. "When he left a year after my sixteenth birthday, I sulked as teenagers tend to do."

"I don't sulk."

Maleficent did not even try to hide the bark of laughter. "Oh, Beastie." She shook her head. "I sulked as you do when I tell you the time for lessons are done and you must return to bed." She stressed that point with a smile, "and when I recovered a little of my senses, my training and attention went to the boundary and the curious pokes from King Henry's scouts. The rest, as the humans tend to say, is history."

Quiet settled between them and lingered comfortably. Aurora rubbed at the berry-stain on her palm once again. "Have you ever asked Eudeyrn? About the Coille I mean."

"No."

"Why not?"

This time, Maleficent answered with a laugh. "Because I am not so much a curious beast as you! I assumed things were as they were and left it at that."

Aurora found herself matching the laugh and offered a smile afterward. "Then it's a good thing you have me here to bring up such things, Godmother."

Maleficent returned the smile and it was an expression as fond and warm as the one Aurora saw upon waking from the Curse. "Yes, Beastie, it is a very good thing."

Aurora regarded the faerie next to her and then carefully leaned into her side as a show of companionship. She was pleased that Maleficent immediately curved both a wing and an arm about her shoulder and tucked her head to the faerie's side as the last of the sunlight was banished from the clearing, replaced with the strange glow of the watching fair folk and the luminous plants and lichen that made the bog their home. Some of the Coille bore mantles of moss and other things that reflected and gave off glow of their own. The end result was a strange gleam that doused the world into a twilight of green and silver, a wash of reflected color that seemed at home in the mist and murk of the marshland.

The air fell still and silent until Aurora heard her heartbeat as loud as a drum in her chest. She strained to see as the world cloaked in shadow and wondered how much harder it was for her compared to the other spectators. She dared not ask Maleficent for help for the atmosphere felt anathema to the very thought of noise.

The Collie moved while she talked with Maleficent and now were gathered at the far end of the clearing, visible only through the luminous lichen and the reflective water at their feet. They stood around a parting of the roots of a gnarled tree. In the dark, Aurora could not make out the type. She startled as her hand was plucked up by Maleficent but smiled when the answer was traced out on her palm via the language shown to her earlier that day.

_Fearn_. The alder tree.

Then came more words and these Aurora could not follow. There was the soft glow of magic at her hand.

Then the world was given to her.

She could see as well as underneath the noonday sun. The lichen glowed and cast light further than she noticed before the spell. It dazzled along the twisted, scarred bark of the Collie and raced over the marsh like threads, curled and spun into lines of glimmering power that illuminated the clearing for her.

The alder tree surrounded by the Coille had roots that parted and sunk deep into the marsh, the roots themselves long since stained by the environment, a stark contrast of pale bark and dark stain. Black soil was being smothered over the alder, smeared along the roots and being built up as a sort of wall against the main waterway of the marsh. As they worked, Eudeyrn stood to the left of the project and spoke. It was in the rumbling old tongue the pixies had taught her unintentionally and intentionally by Maleficent herself.

"It is said that upon the shores of Alba there is a purpose and place for all things and no one creature knows this truth better than the Coille. We are, each one, a single branch upon the great tree of our people, and we are brought forth into our place within the Forest."

Other Coille shuffled in. These ones carried a wrapped bundle bound tight with dirty canvas that Aurora thought reminded her of the tents from the festival. Man-made fabric. It looked out of place in the center of the Moors, and rather worn and battered from the glimpses she managed.

"For the _Feàrna, _this purpose is twofold, though one is requested of them more than the other. First among their duties is shelter; the _Feàrna _will always guide those lost and in need of sanctuary for it was the Alder that hid Deirdre and Naoise beneath their bower. So long as the _Feàrna _stand, never will this Moorland give away all her secrets to any intruder and there will always be glens to provide sanctuary. This duty, however noble, is not what brings us into this ceremony."

Behind him, the wrapped bundle was set into the space built up from the dirt and the roots. The water splashed as the Coille began to unravel the stiff linen from whatever was inside. While Aurora listened, she pushed up in her seat to try and gain a better viewpoint.

Eudeyrn held up the carving for display and with the faery-sight upon her eyes the line of runes danced in her vision. "The second duty of the _Feàrna_ is what will bring forth the Coille for as the Alder straddle the waterways, with their roots always half-submerged in water that would stagnate and cripple the growth of other trees, and as the Alder who first grows in the most infertile of soil … the _Feàrna _brought forth for this purpose know how to walk the roads that slip from this world to the one beyond it and continue walking to discover that which is hidden."

The Coille reached for the roots of the alder tree and tore into them with bruising force, the noise caused Aurora to jolt, so sudden was it. They peeled the bark in the same manner of the runes on the tablet and the runes that dotted the boundary stones. The tree twisted beneath them and bled red sap that flowed downward into the occupied crevice.

Aurora's gasp broke the stillness beyond Eudeyrn's voice but no one reprimanded her. She shrunk down from her kneel and pressed tight to Maleficent's side for the crevice and it's occupant had taken new form: that of the grave.

A body stripped bare and stiff in the way Aunt Knotgrass preserved rabbits during the winter laid in state between the separated roots of the alder, skin dark from exposure and decomposition. This was not the perfumed, styled death of her father; dressed up for the comfort of the living. This face was stretched tight, features slack in death. the body was contorted, curled in on itself like a snake. Around the body, the Coille placed the torn-away bark, setting it in the same pattern and style of runes as they had ripped it from the alder tree moments earlier. The red-tinged sap turned the water within the grave a dark crimson color with the consistency of porridge from the way it clung and stuck to the legs of the Coille who moved about in it.

"The first _Feàrna _was formed of the first druid when he asked the forest if there was a way to escape the inevitable death that awaits all of men. The forest could not provide that to a man that which it could not prevent within itself for even the eldest of trees will succumb eventually. The _Ioua_ finally discovered the answer but by then the druid had perished; falling to sleep peacefully and never waking."

Maleficent's fingers worked on her palm again. _Ioua_: the Yew tree.

Eudeyrn twisted and the bark along his body creaked as he stared down into the grave. By now, the Coille were burying the body underneath the rich dark soil wet with not only the marsh but the life of the alder tree itself. Eudeyrn bent low and set the carving that Aurora had given Maleficent upon the cairn of dirt and sap and water.

"The day before the Winter Solstice the _Ioua_ buried that druid beneath the roots of an Alder tree and bid the druid a safe journey, for which of the trees could be a better guide to the Otherworld but the Alder?" The roots shifted and groaned and came to life in a way Aurora thought trees could not achieve. They stretched towards the fertile soil and the body beneath it. Aurora stared on in mute fascination and horror as the alder tree wrapped roots upon roots over and around the body until there was nothing but a faintly pulsing mound of living wood. She risked a glance at Maleficent - even the faery was entranced by the display.

"On the morning of the day after the Solstice the _Ioua_ went back to the burial mound of the druid and found that the grave had been disturbed. Furious at the insult to the druid's memory the _Ioua_ called out for the trespasser."

Eudeyrn rose himself up to his full height and let out a commanding shout that shook through the clearing and deep into Aurora's bones. It compelled her to stand and she did so. Around her the Fair Folk did as well. Even Maleficent, strong as she was, seemed unable to resist that wordless shout.

"And the trespasser answered."

From underneath the knotted mass of wood and dirt and blood and bone came the sound of movement; of scratching and shuffling. The roots heaved upward once. Twice. Three times before they pulled back unfolded, quick as mist rolling away from sunlight. From below a hand reached up.

"The Alder had indeed been a wonderful guide, leading the druid to and then from the Otherworld until they came back; paired forever from the journey taken. The druid, now _Feàrna, _might not have beaten his death but he had returned from it wiser. It was him who later taught the _Cód Drui _to those that needed it."

What stood up from the grave was neither man nor tree, and did not look like the other Coille Aurora had met during her months visiting the Moors. This one was of pale brown bark without the gnarled pathways like Eudeyrn or Balthazar. Instead, what raced along the _Feàrna's_ body was the very same runic lettering from the carving and the ritual itself. At the crest of his forehead, the impression of the great tree resided. He stood as tall as Maleficent, perhaps taller, and stepped out of the grave with shaky movements. He was not like the other Coille, not more tree than man; but rather something entirely new. He looked like one of those figurines posed in eternal motion that Philip showed her at the woodsman's tent. His eyes were sable, pupilless and unblinking. He approached her, and she could not help but lean back a little.

Maleficent's arm tightened at her shoulder and the wing curved defensively over her but neither did she rebuke the _Feàrna's _nearness.

He stopped three feet from her and dropped to one knee like a marionette. He went motionless, head ducked low until it finally creaked upward to look at her. "I ask of you for a name, Princess."

Aurora looked away from the unnatural smoothness of his body and motion; she looked to Maleficent for guidance on what to do next but saw only the indifferent mask the faery perfected long before even Aurora was thought of. The rapid fluttering of the wing over her shoulder and Maleficent's hand tight upon her like a shield gave away the uneasiness and suggestion that not even Maleficent knew what should happen, or even how to suggest a beginning point. Dazzling gold eyes sought out the shadowed form of Eudeyrn and held it for a heartbeat before they met Aurora's own gaze.

Maleficent nodded for Aurora to do what she felt best.

Aurora turned back to the new _Feàrna. _She wanted to ask questions: namely why he wanted a name from her, why was he asking her and not Maleficent or even Eudeyrn but she felt that such (simple, really) things for her were not so simple for folks who had seen the world when it was young. Maleficent was right, it was daunting to even think of just approaching them and speaking like they were on the same level. Not to mention one of the books auntie Knotgrass had brought back from market claimed that tradition was the backbone of society and to question it was to shake the very foundations of the kingdom - even despite the realization that rules for human tradition couldn't apply here anyways!

Aurora took a steadying breath and tried to muster a smile that wasn't forced through apprehension or panic. "What … what was your name… um, before…before you?" She floundered a helpless gesture back towards the alder tree and the torn ground. She hoped he understood.

That unblinking, unmovable stare never wavered from her own. "Keith. I was called Keith."

"Then Keith you shall remain."

Keith bowed his head low with her decision and the world around them returned to the bright (too bright) sunshine of the afternoon.

* * *

Notes: This story heavily takes inspiration from Irish and Scottish myths and folklore but as we continue our journey, I do hope that no one minds a little artistic interpretation. Once again, I would like to thank every one of you that reads. If you follow or favorite, or if you leave reviews, or even if you just read you mean a lot. This school-years been heavy on the sciences and buckling down for serious work and while my update progress has slowed, your constant pokes encourage me to keep at least one thing non-medical related. :)


	15. Chapter 15

Maleficent wanted nothing more than to interrupt the ritual and ignore the unspoken rules that surrounded such sacred rites and demand of Euderyn an explanation that made sense of the fact that Aurora had been given a sacrificed man as her, what, honor guard? Servant? It was one thing, perhaps a little too soon - to show Aurora the grim side of the Moors as well as the brightness, but it was another entirely to -

"Godmother?" Aurora whispered and snaked a hand upon Maleficent's own that still covered her shoulder. The touch grounded Maleficent and settled the impulse to demand answers to something less immediate - it would be difficult, but she believed she could wait until the rest of the Moorlands weren't watching with too-inquisitive gazes. A mixture of confusion and anger rumbled along her bones like the vibrations of a storm - but there was nothing to be done. She allowed the sensation to wash over her until she was drained of emotion and could sit still without fidgeting. Aurora's hand slipped from her own when Maleficent let out a drawn out sigh.

It would have been a terrible breach of hospitality but Maleficent still heard Aurora's frightened gasp in her ear and the girl still trembled faintly under Maleficent's hand. If Maleficent's defensive reaction was a cause from her years watching Aurora's interactions with the Moors, it would be something to process later away from the oppressive bog and the heavy weight of the grave just meters away. Right now, Maleficent felt as if Aurora's bravado was locked up in the continuation of her nearness and so the faery remained close, her body and wings a shield and her hand an anchor. She had been named Protector of the Moors long ago and she'd recently accepted that Aurora was forefront among that charge. She used the quiet to observe Keith and found that he repulsed her at the same time that he intrigued her as a creature of magic. There was a current beneath the polished bark, a stream of magic that snapped against the contours of his body. It reminded Maleficent of the lightning bugs in summer, the complex flicker of their calls to one another and the elaborate language they spoke through the evenings of their short lives.

Eudeyrn spoke truth: Keith embodied duality in nearly every form the meaning applied to. Hideousness and Wonder. Otherworldly and Natural, Living and Dead. Faerie and Human. The _feàrna _crouched before them still, eyes averted to the marsh he kneeled in.

The creak of wood alerted Maleficent to the movement of the trees and of the Coille. The ritual space closed in further, a barrier between those within and the gathered Moorland folk outside. The rustle of the leaves and the groan of the branches both drowned out the complaints of the other spectators and, Maleficent surmised, worked in reverse until the space seemed to house only the two of them and the Coille themselves.

The Coille spread through the space to converse in their own way with one another, Aurora rose up and crossed the marsh to where Eudeyrn stood, his head tilted down into the grave itself. Maleficent granted the girl a few seconds head start and then followed. She watched with keen sight as Aurora's motion grew stiff with the compulsion to keep her eye forward and not down to the same pit Euderyn stared into. She neared while Aurora thanked Eudeyrn for the gift with a shaky voice, and then in the same breath inquired why she had been given such a gift.

Maleficent might have had reason to still her tongue, but Aurora did not and with the silence cloaked around them it appeared as a chance to quell some of the apprehension and nerves the ritual had left her with.

Eudeyrn craned his neck to look toward Keith. His body swayed with the trees around them and while Maleficent stared at him with apprehension coloring her vision he appeared to her an ominous shadow that stretched too far over her own and over the princess. She shook her head, violent enough that it drew the attention of the others, to try and rid herself of those gloomy thoughts. It was a side-effect of the place and the bog. Nothing more

"You brought a strange puzzle to the Moors, Princess Aurora." Euderyn answered Aurora only after Maleficent waved off the looks directed her way.

"Yes. I … understand - a little, of what you mean by that but-" Aurora waved a hand back towards Keith, decidedly not looking where she gestured. "Why did he ask me to name him?"

"Because he is yours, Princess."

"Mine?"

"Hers?" Aurora and Maleficent asked as one.

Eudeyrn granted the two of them a slow nod. "Yours." He did not elaborate further.

Maleficent could not tell if that was because of miscommunication or deliberate withholding.

Aurora's hands wound together at her stomach - nerves. "Yes, I understand that too, I think - but why?"

The wind whistled low in the air around them, a sorrowful note that drew the hair up at the base of the neck. "It is your mystery to uncover, Princess Aurora. All the Coille can offer is the most precious of our magic and hope it lends you aid."

"Aid for what though?" A note of frustration sang out in Aurora's tone.

Eudeyrn creaked and swayed some more. The longer he did so, the more ther thought that the ritual had drained him grew in Maleficent's mind. Exactly how old was the Ancient? "Nothing in this world is lost forever, no matter by the hand that hid it away - for benevolence or malice; or that of time, or gods, or simple forgetfulness." That drained him, the vitality leaching from him like warmth in the winter evenings. He began the walk into the bog that was his home. Before the ever-present mist swallowed his form however, Maleficent swooped forward to his side, then around him to stall his passage.

"Wait, please."

The ancient Coille inclined his head for her to speak.

"Aurora is not one of the people, Euderyn. You must give her something more than riddles? She is not like myself when I trained at your knee with the ages to suss out the answers to what you spoke of."

"Must I?" He glanced at her, sharp edges along the slant of his features.

"She is a human and she is a child, and -" She waved a hand helplessly as she tried to think.  
"Does this has to do with Balthazar teaching her the Code?" The _feàrna_ taught the first Druids. "Are the Coille...?"

Eudeyrn sighed and the ritual and secrecy fell away from the clearing like the morning fog before the sunrise. Maleficent shielded herself with her wings, curving them forward and above her to lessen the impact of the sudden emergence into the world proper. She scowled at the lack of warning and waited until she was settled before she dropped her wings back behind her.

"Is that not what you had been doing for the last several months?" He inquired. "I have merely formalized the lessons with the right teacher. You touched her with faerie magic before the human world ever truly had her, Maleficent, what other path could she possibly walk? Now, if you will allow me … I must rest." He did not wait for Maleficent's questions and those she did send after his form were answered with only silence.

"He didn't really answer me ... or you," Aurora mentioned, frustration furrowed over her brow. She'd also watched Euderyn disappear into the bog.

Maleficent supposed the answers lied with the carving that now crawled along Keith's bark as a living tattoo and suggested as much to Aurora as they retreated from the bogs to the higher lands of the Moors, where swamp gave way to streams and grassy knolls. The shadows of the grave left them, shrinking back into the bog and gloom. Evening had not yet claimed the Moors and the sun dominated the high reaches of the western sky. It spilled through the canopy of the trees and glittered gold on the ripples of the water. If Maleficent did not know better, she would have thought the light a deliberate distraction from the recent events.

Behind them the _feàrna _followed, silent as the grave he'd been pulled from. He unsettled her as he shadowed Aurora, and for the first time in quite a while Maleficent lamented that she'd not listened to Diaval's council on inducting Aurora so deeply within the magic of the Moors, or perhaps never attending the damned Christening ceremony. If such a creature bothered her, it could not have been appealing for the princess who had yet to leave her side.

But Diaval was not there to offer advice and would not be for at least one night longer. Maleficent hoped for him a speedy return for he served as an excellent listener while she presented thoughts in a manner she did not want to concern Aurora with. Best to keep the little beast away from her doubts so they did not become Aurora's burdens as well.

As if Aurora knew her thoughts, the girl reached out a hand to touch gently above her wrist. "I'm sure they're running back from the other side of the Kingdom right now and we're going to be subjected to a whole week's worth of Diaval's stories of his personal bravery and heroism."

Guilt flooded her. It was foolish to assume Aurora could not sense the turmoil of her thoughts. "Yes," Maleficent agreed. She decided to let Aurora's optimism take over and followed the lead with her own brand of wit, hoping it would lighten the mood further. "I believe I am looking quite forward to mocking every one of those tales of bravery and dashing heroism behind him. He'll be far too busy preening his own self-worth to notice."

Aurora giggled and some shadow fell from her expression. She looked over her shoulder, then tugged on Maleficent's robe to slow her to a stop. "Do you think we should ask Keith?"

"Ask Keith what?" Maleficent acknowledged the _feàrna _with a quick backwards glance.

"Why he was formed. What he's supposed to teach me and help me with? What we're supposed to find that's been lost? Wouldn't he know?"

Maleficent had no answer to give but a permissive nod of her chin for Aurora to see her thoughts through to action.

Which is exactly what Aurora did. With a fearlessness that was a poor bluff for the actual fright that clung to Aurora like a spider web, Aurora approached Keith and stood in the shadow of his height. "Hello Keith."

Keith crouched to be at eye-level with Aurora, slow and careful. With the leveling of their gazes, he did not look quite so terrible in the golden light. The sun caught in the eddies and swirls of the runes upon his bark and cast them alight against the pale brown. "Hello, Princess."

"Would you mind terribly if I ask you questions?"

"No." Keith shook his head. "That is what I am here for."

Maleficent sought out a spot to sit while Aurora spoke with Keith. She found a flat rock by the rushing stream and settled there. As Aurora thought of a first question, Maleficent dropped the tips of her wings into the water and with gentle movements began to preen them in a manner she'd not done in a very long time. It soothed her mind and gave her a distraction and she hoped it gave Aurora the courage to be bold without feeling abandoned or ignored.

"Who were you before today?"

"I was Keith of Greensburrow, a village on the far side of your kingdom, I had volunteered into the standing army your Father commissioned because the harvest had been poor since revocation of the fair folk. The army paid well and it was a far better time than plowing the field or tending the sheep."

"How did you…-"

"Die? I volunteered to be one of the first to test the power of iron against the Wall of Thorns. It was my regiment that encountered Maleficent just after midwinter."Maleficent remembered that day well enough - she'd brought Aurora into the Moors that very night. Keith continued: "I was crushed within my armor and died on the field. When the alder tree came for me, I answered."

Maleficent drizzled water over the long primary feathers, watching as it mixed with the dirt, dust, and the normal powder that her own feathers made to keep themselves fairly clean. The little of the bogs that stuck to her feathers disappeared as she worked her fingers in rhythmic strokes to align the feathers just right.

Aurora went quiet after Keith's answer but the _feàrna _stayed true to his purpose and seemed to know what to answer without it ever being voiced. "Who I am now largely depends on what you have need of me, Princess Aurora. What I will not do in your service, I will instead spend my time answering the questions the Coille have concerning their purpose."

That drew Maleficent into the conversation and she left one wing damp and untidy as she turned. "The Coille question their existence?"

Keith turned his sightless gaze upon her. "The Coille understand that they guard the sacred places of the world. That has been their Calling since Danu first coaxed them into bloom."

Maleficent tilted her head, thinking. She went back to her wing, the motion of her fingers aiding her in organizing her thoughts."The Carving tells a different origin story?"

"Yes."

Aurora sat on the rock next to Maleficent, she removed her slippers and dipped her feet in the water downstream of where Maleficent preened. "Why would a different origin story bother the Coille?"

Keith blinked without a reason to do so. "The Coille feel the pull of the forest. It is what brought us into existence even though Danu has long since left the world - we hear her command over all other voices even now. This carving suggests something anathema to what we are taught as we're pulled from the soil: that the voice is not Danu. This concerns Euderyn because if we are not bound to the will of Danu and the voice that sings to us beneath the soil is not her … then who commands the Coille? This is what Euderyn seeks to answer."

"I don't quite understand." Aurora looked between Maleficent and Keith.

Maleficent struggled on the words to explain it to Aurora. "Aurora, you understand the oaths that the human captain - Berend - said he followed?"

Aurora nodded. Her head tilted to one side as she listened and it reminded Maleficent of Diaval.

"The Coille do not voluntarily swear oaths to serve as humans do. Your Captain might be honor bound to follow what he pledged, but a human can break that command if they so wished. It does not destroy them in the way it would one of the fae. Even still, voluntary or not, what the carving suggests is that the purpose that has driven the Coille for eons is a lie, that their entire worldview is not what they've been taught and raised to believe. It is a betrayal inconceivable if it is true." The very thought sent a shudder of revulsion through Maleficent.

Aurora did not look as if the idea repulsed her as it did Maleficent. No, she appeared to understand that sort of intimate betrayal no girl of sixteen years should; and it showed in the depth of her gaze as she listened to Maleficent's explanation. Aurora had forgiven her but that birthday would be a lesson neither one of them would forget for a very, very long time.

The look set Maleficent off-balance and she struggled to collect her thoughts. She ducked back to her wings, her fingers shaky as she smoothed and set feathers. She left the conversation and an ugly silence remained in her wake. Aurora banished it by adjusting the topic. "So why give Keith to my service at all? Couldn't he just work with the other Coille?"

Maleficent considered. "Not if he wanted to keep the revelation secret. You are not connected to the Coille as they are to each other and I believe the awakening of Keith in such a manner-" she did her best to gloss over the idea of human bones and human skin becoming lost underneath the roots of the alder tree - "allows him a distance from that same communion that the Coille share."

"So he doesn't want to know?"

"I believe that, Aurora, relies on what is discovered should you choose to pay any attention towards the matter."

"Why wouldn't I?" Aurora leaned back and rested her head at the center of Maleficent's shoulders. Maleficent could feel the girl's chin lift up as she looked skyward. "The Moors -"

"Have been around long enough that should you choose to focus on the far more pressing matter of your impending Queenship, no one here would consider you shirking any duty that you may believe you hold to us." Maleficent chuckled softly at the exasperated noise that came from the girl behind her. "Or did you forget that little matter entirely?"

"I might have."

"Aurora, I promise you that the Coille would find action taken in a hundred years to be quick on picking up the search. Do not fret about having everything on your shoulders at once." She stretched an arm back to grasp at Aurora's hand. Aurora squeezed hers in response.

"I guess bandits trying to kidnap me is a little more pressing, huh?"

"A trifle, I would assume."

Keith shuffled into view, coming to stand far enough away that his presence didn't bunch Maleficent's wings in agitation but close enough that he could speak without lifting his voice beyond the raspy whisper he's maintained since his arrival. "If we are waiting for favorable weather concerning the origin story, may we talk about Aurora's training since I believe she started underneath your tutelage?"

Maleficent did not want to talk about Aurora's training with the resurrected corpse of a man who had nearly struck Aurora down only months earlier because of a misunderstanding of who the girl was. If she refused the _feàrna _this role, there could be gaps in Aurora's knowledge that would be weaknesses outside of the Moors where Maleficent could not always be. So she sighed and stubbornly focused on not telling the _feàrna _to go back into the bog where he'd come from.

She must not have been subtle for she felt both Aurora and Keith's eyes upon the strained curve of her back. "She inquired about the Moors and I did not see the harm in answering her endless questions. There was no tutelage, nothing so formal as the Coille are considered."

"They weren't endless!" Aurora whipped around, lifting up onto her knees to properly glare at Maleficent. The look was one that prompted Maleficent's response to be as dry as any retort she's delivered to Diaval.

"I had to place you in a magical slumber to get a moment's rest for myself, Beastie. What would you call that?"

Aurora stuck her tongue out as a reply. "Diaval would call it avoidance."

"Diaval is a bird who knows very little about not being a bird. I suggest you stop listening to him." Maleficent quirked a brow and watched Aurora watch her until she was uncomfortable with the look directed her way. "What?"

"Will you be all right if I agreed to have Keith teach me?"

"Why would I not be all right with this? The _feàrna _have always trained the druids and my personal standing on the subject doesn't matter."

Aurora frowned. "It matters to me."

Chastised, Maleficent rolled her neck to one side. "I ...appreciate that, Aurora, but I would be remiss in being your godmother and a Protector of the Moors if I shirked you from excellent mentorship because I am displeased with how it came to be."

Aurora smiled and Maleficent looked from that to Keith. "You will not mind if I stay near during the lessons?"

Keith shook his head. "I would be honored by your presence."

Maleficent did not know if Keith was bound to the same matters of truth as the rest of the fae, due to his circumstances but for Aurora's sake she merely nodded her head in acknowledgement. She slid her hands along her wings one last time, then stood and beckoned for the pair to follow her. "You should begin immediately and I know just the place."

* * *

A/N: Finals, Dragon Age, and WoW oh my! To those of you who review, thank you. You're what keep the story going when all other stressors just tell me to stop.


	16. Chapter 16

Maleficent denied herself the title of Aurora's tutor, consistently and with such a look of annoyance that Aurora and Keith were quick to assure the temperamental faery that they accepted her stance, but neither Aurora or Keith honored the dismissal. The Protector of the Moors had devoted seventeen years to indirect and direct interference with Aurora's life, and while she might not claim the title formally, Keith had deferred to her whenever he approached a subject that Aurora mentioned Maleficent touched upon earlier. A day's wait turned into three, and then into a week after the ritual of Keith's awakening; and every passing evening with no news brought Maleficent into a foul mood that grew with every absence on the horizon and Aurora with a strange sense of worry that she'd never experienced before.

It's not the sudden sharp stab of agony that jabbed low in her stomach back when the iron fell upon Maleficent and Aurora had proven useless with her attempts to remove the guards. It was not the pangs of loneliness and fretting when Maleficent would not summon for Aurora after one of Aurora's questions caused the faery to quiet and tense up the night before. This was a growing ache, a hollowness that nestled right beneath her ribcage and gnawed at her until nausea rolled in her stomach.

They should have been back by now.

Eight days after Keith's promise to tutor found the trio tucked into the shadow of the largest boundary stone that signified the divide between the Moorlands and the Kingdom. They were far enough away from the boundary that Maleficent felt that any curious passerbys - which had become surprisingly common with the retreat of the Thorn Wall, from both sides of the divide - would see nothing of importance, and near enough to the runestone that Keith could point out the engravings there for Aurora to learn. The stone itself was covered in a blend of abstract pictures that displayed events that occurred long before the human kingdom established itself. The stylized drawings showcased horse riders chasing after massive beasts that had no modern analogue that either Maleficent or Keith could give name to. Aurora tracked her gaze over the long curving talons of a creature that prowled so low to the ground that it's belly scraped over the rocks and yet stood so high that it dwarfed the men who hunted it with spears. By some of the symbols, there were intricate designs that were artwork in themselves. Other symbols had scratches gouged deep into the stone next to them, some long and sprawling lines of chipped blue stone, and others short and scattered, like signatures. It was these scratches that Keith started Aurora on.

"They're called Ogham," Keith dragged a finger through the soil he crouched over. Aurora sat cross-legged before him and leaned eagerly to watch him trace out what looked like chickenscratch that hens ran over dirt. A single line down the center and then three dashes to the side. "This is Fer."

Aurora gave him a dubious glance and then turned her head pointedly toward the stone. "You want me to learn how to write that?" She wasn't even sure she had the hand alphabet down yet.

"To understand them," Keith elaborated. "While I don't think you'll be erecting megaliths to record momentous events, you should understand the stones that decorate the kingdom. Most crossroads will bear them, most sites of great importance, the boundary markers of the Moors as an example."

"What are the stones?" Aurora asked, her attention back on the curved line of that creature, intimidating even though it was stone and centuries long gone.

"They serve to remind us of what has passed years before. Some as boundary markers, like the ones that guard the Moors; others, like I said, mark crossroads because where else would you expect to leave a giant stone so everyone can see what had been done?" Keith smiled faintly there, the expression startling on his otherwise masked features. "Most stones you'll see, however, are grave markers. Someone, somewhere, was important enough to warrant the dragging of blue stone and the detailed carving."

"This was also taught to the druids?" Maleficent inquired of Keith.

"Actually, no. This language probably came from the Bards of Eire, across the western-"

"I know where the Isle lies." Maleficent cut him off, her voice rising an octave. "The boundary stones are not carved with the deaths of men."

Keith went quiet, and allowed Maleficent a moment or two of ill-temper before he resumed. "The Bards of Eire sat at the feet of Ogma and learned how to preserve the memory of heroes and villains. And Ogma, Lady Protector is of the Tuatha dé … who are certainly not of the Fair Folk."

"They are not human, either, feàrna." Maleficent wielded his title like a weapon, cutting and dismissive with just a simple change in her tone. Aurora felt torn between siding with her godmother, who she adored; and with the feàrna who had done nothing but answer her question upon question without judgement simmering just below the surface. Before she could act, though, Keith proved he could handle Maleficent when she was acerbic.

"What they were, were invaders from the Western Ocean who settled the lands." Keith adjusted so that when he spoke, it included Aurora in the conversation. "Ogma is not as refined as either the Trade letters or the High language, but it will serve a strategitic importance to you, Princess."

"How? I know what Balthazar and Maleficent told me about the Druid's Code, do I need to learn another language when I can't even understand High Language yet?" Aurora frowned. She's scoured every book her Aunties brought home from the market, and she could read Trade with some effort, but the language of the nobles had been out of her grasp and the few bits of it she'd caught glimpses of in the castle slipped through her mind like water dripping out from a sieve.

"When you hunt for food, you do not only use one method to bring down game. You set snares for rabbits, you lay out nets for birds and fish, and you forage for the times that your traps are unsuccessful. Maintaining a safety net about your royal person is no different. You have no spymaster, Princess, and very little in other means of protection."

"I have Maleficent." Aurora placed all of her faith and support into those three words yet when Keith stared down at her, the words felt like they meant nothing at all in light of what the feàrna meant. She tried, regardless. "She rescued me from the soldiers, she taught me about the Moors, and on my birthday she ...well, rescued me again."

Maleficent was tense and silent beside her. Aurora's fingers itched to reach out and grasp along the hem of her robe, perhaps even brush against the feathers of her wings; something to ground her, but when her godmother was as wound tight as ivy about a branch, Aurora knew to let her have space. Even if that meant Aurora floundered in the void.

Keith watched her, his pupiless gaze observed only to make Aurora feel more foolish, like there had been an entirely simple answer and she'd failed to see it. "Princess Aurora," he began, and his voice was nothing like the emptiness of his stare. "I will never doubt the devotion of the Lady Protector when it comes to your person, nor will I ever doubt her fierceness in battle should events ever transpire to bring you back into physical harm."

"But?" Maleficent asked.

"The world you are entering is one filled with threats you cannot meet on the field. These are threats cultivated in the sunlit halls, using the mask of smiles and well-wishes to provide succor and shelter to poisonous plots that will infect the court you surround yourself with. You are a young ruler, and that is ...precarious enough, but you are also a woman and that comes with challenges you cannot even comprehend now." Keith leaned forward and pressed his hands over hers, and Aurora felt herself still. "My knowledge comes from those who have passed on through the Otherworld. I have the whispers of kings in my ears, and terrible men who orchestrated events that leave stains upon my own spirit." He squeezed her fingers gently. "I have also the knowledge of those women who have walked your path, Princess, and it is their knowledge I gift to you when I tell you that you are not nearly as protected as you believe." He released her hands. "I will return to you in an hour's time. There is something I must do first." He stood and left with one fluid motion and for the second time that afternoon, Aurora felt lost in the middle of a river that raged around her.

There was a shift in the air, and a heaviness fell upon Aurora's shoulders. The weight of Maleficent's wing curved down along her back and though the faery still sat tense and bristled next to her, there was comfort offered as well. And it was that comfort Aurora wrapped around herself to ward off the sense of foreboding that Keith's warning left within her.

*~WW~*

Keith and Aurora took their next lesson as promised an hour later, and only when Maleficent checked with Aurora that she would be all right without the faery's watchful eye. Aurora nodded, not sure that she was being honest. Even Maleficent lingered until the questioning look in her eyes faded, but eventually took off on a flight to scout the Moors - and to scan the horizon for the dark blot of wings she and Aurora had been hoping to see for too many days now. Aurora mentioned to Keith once the shadow of the Moor's Protector disappeared over the canopy that she believed Maleficent wanted to burn off the frustration from the earlier conversation, and to keep Aurora from seeing her concern over the absent Diaval, but didn't know how to say it without causing offense or worry.

"Yet you wanted her to remain here."

Aurora shrugged. "She would have only felt terrible."

"You're observant of her." Keith remarked, his words bland.

"She's Maleficent." Aurora said the faery's name as if that was the complete story. "She's not really ...um … friendly? No… that's not the word."

"Expressive?"

"Maybe?" Aurora mulled the word over before shrugging. "She doesn't like to reveal what she thinks before she has made up her mind. She reminds me of a hedgehog. When you're all curled up, your spines are protecting you and you're safe but … you can't really show yourself without getting hurt and she has already been hurt too many times. Every time we talk about the Curse and how I was raised differently, and what might happen because of ...that … she feels terrible and yet she can't express it. Not when she's spent my entire life learning to become stone."

"I think I will adjust my statement, Princess. You are observant in general."

Aurora blushed and looked down to her hands. There was dirt under her fingernails and small little scrapes from when she'd climbed one of the young trees to get to one of the fruits that tasted sweet on the tongue but had no name she could pronounce (yet). "My aunts weren't really ...there when I grew up. I mean, they fed me and clothed me, but they kept to themselves. So I watched them and saw how they were together. If I could act like Thistlewit or know how to say things like Knotgrass, I thought they would notice me every so often. Or if I could learn to read their moods -" She trailed off, and rubbed at her eyes.

Keith bowed his head. "That is a very sad sort of learning."

"It wasn't all sad!" Aurora felt rushed to assure him, sniffing away the sense of melancholy. "When Diaval showed up - I didn't know he was Diaval, he was always a bird when he visited - and I got to learn what he meant when he'd twitch a tail feather or tilt his head one way or another. It was fun -with him. It was like learning a secret code. By the time I met Maleficent, I was pretty good at noticing how people speak without speaking and I think…" she trailed off with a worried tilt to the end of her sentence before it fluttered away like one of Flittle's butterflies. "I think it helps her to learn to be all right with me … being human." She stopped herself before she could voice the actual reason she felt that way, that it helped Maleficent come to terms with who Aurora's father was, no matter how many times Maleficent assured Aurora that no longer concerned the faery. It might have been a lie but the truth of the matter was not hers to involve Keith.

"Well," Keith watched her with those unblinking eyes. "I think you may be able to continue to obtain use from those lessons still. I am certain that if you can understand the mysterious Lady Protector, you will come to learn the mysteries of the forests no matter where you travel."

"The forests outside the Moors have the same sort of magic in them?" Aurora tapped her hand to the center of her palm, the way Balthazar showed her to clear the word spelled on her hand.

"Most do." Keith continued to scratch lines into the dirt, rapid and precise and Aurora could not follow the letters. "If you encounter a forest that does not speak the same language," he tapped her palm, "they will understand your intent."

"How?"

"Languages that derive from any of the faery cultures -"

"There's more than the Moors?"

Keith smiled then, a strange expression that looked as out of place on him as he looked in the world itself. "As many as there are human cultures, even more I would believe. Perhaps when you are Queen you will come to know some of them."

Aurora thought that would be quite fun, and the thought quickly wiped clean the earlier sadness. She wondered about those distant cultures; would they be at all similar to the Moors she grew up in, or would they be even more strange than the sights she's seen? As she pondered the potential future introductions and exchanges, a thought occurred to her. "Did you know any of this before you ...changed?"

"No." Keith wrote from the bottom of the line upwards, the letters not flowing together as they did in the books the pixies gave her.

"It's all from the tree?"

Keith paused in his writing and leaned back to brace his position upon a rigid arm. He stared past her to the stone that had been the subject of their earlier lesson. "Have you ever fished, Princess Aurora?"

She shook her head. What little fish she'd had over the years had been caught by her aunts when they were away from the cottage, or when they traveled to the market without her.

"Allow me a chance to share with you one of the legends I grew up with as a boy?"

Aurora nodded.

"Within the Otherworld in the lands that Manannán, son of the ocean, governs over, rests a well that is ringed by nine hazel trees - do you remember the name for them in the old tongue?"

Aurora nodded. "Coll. Wait. Does that have anything to do with the Coille?" She frowned as Keith chuckled.

"Coll is correct. The nine hazel trees that ring the well have their roots deep within the soil of the Otherworld, soil that has been walked upon by the spirits of all who has ever passed through the mists. Human, faery, Tuatha dé, even those who came before all of us. These hazel trees took up the wisdom of those passing travelers and it bore fruit as the hazelnuts that bloomed every year. Now, within this ringed well lives a special type of fish, a salmon. These particular salmon love to eat hazelnuts and as they ate and ate the fruit that dropped into the well every year, they grew more and more wise until they were stuffed with all the wisdom of the world."

"But ...you are an alder tree?"

"Ah, I have not finished the tale, Princess." Keith wagged a finger at her and she giggled back at him. "The tale changes from here depending on where you are, but within our village, it continues thusly: a poet wanted one of these salmon for himself, to know all there was to possibly know, and so he set out for seven years hunting through the rivers that flowed from the Otherworld into our own for the chance to catch a salmon. On the seventh year, he strung up a net between the roots of two alder trees that overgrew the banks of a river swollen from rainfall. As he waited in the center of the water, the salmon were trapped by the roots and the net because wisdom does not mean excellent reflexes."

Aurora laughed again. "Did he eat the salmon?"

"His son did, by accident. The poet was so exhausted from his seven-year hunt that he threw the fish upon the shore and bade his son to roast the fish upon the fish for the man's supper."

"Did the boy eat the salmon?"

"If you keep asking questions, will you ever reach the end of the tale?" Keith chuckled, a low raspy sound that vibrated through the earth. "The boy did not eat of the fish at first, because he was a good lad and honored his father, but as he cooked the salmon, a drop of the oil dripped onto his finger and scalded him. Those salmon were so rich with knowledge that a single drop of their oil would pass on the knowledge. Think of me as the alder tree used as a net to catch the salmon. I did not eat of the fish, but the silvery scales scraped along my roots and brought me knowledge beyond any mortal kenning. I am afraid I will never be as wise as Fionn, though."

"Maybe I should catch a salmon." Aurora commented and smiled with Keith inclined his head in agreement.

"If you ever have seven years to spare, I don't see the harm."

*~WW~*

The sun was low in the sky, fire streaking along the ground where the light still held claim. The sky bled from the rich red of the west into the velvet blue of the oncoming night when Maleficent returned from her travels. The gust from her landing sent a chill through Aurora's dress, and the faery barely took two seconds to collect her footing before she strode to their sides, determination written over her.

"What troubles you Lady Protector?" Keith inquired, and Aurora twisted in her seat to spy the distrustful frown that graced Maleficent.

"A rider approaches."

"Were you expecting them?"

Aurora didn't remember if the plan had been for Berend and Philip to return with Diaval, or if they were to make a later meeting. From the look on Maleficent's face, odd enough that it wasn't masked by the neutrality Aurora had grown used to - this seemed not what Maleficent expected at all.

"Do you want me to take Aurora back into the Moors?" Keith asked.

"What? No." Aurora narrowed her gaze. "I won't go." She glowered when Maleficent appeared to be considering Keith's offer. "You cannot make me."

"Aurora, I think you'll find that I could make you do a great many things if I cared little about your thoughts on the matter," Maleficent sent her a chastising look but did not consent to Keith's suggestion. "Aurora is safest here, but if you could summon the Border Guards?"

Keith inclined his head and clambered to his feet. He moved slow and careful around Aurora during the day, but now he struck out toward the protective shadow of the Moors with a speed that took Aurora by surprise. He disappeared into the gloom as the sound of hoofbeats entered the furthest reaches of Aurora's hearing.

She strained to listen to the cadence. It was fast, urgent. The rider cared little for stealth. She said as much to Maleficent, and felt a touch of pride when the faery lauded her effort. The two of them stood side by side, the evening wind rushed along the hem of their cloaks and caused the lighter feathers at the top of Maleficent's wings to rustle. Aurora wanted to ask if Maleficent's flight had calmed the faery's nerves because it felt like every time the subject of Aurora's inevitable ascent to the human throne caused the faery some sort of grief; but Aurora lost the chance as soon as she built up her nerve: the rider banked into view.

It was a woman, tall even on horseback and comfortable without a saddle or stirrups. Like Berend, she had russet dark skin that gleamed as the last rays of sun skirted across her. She wore trousers and a vest tight-cinched over a loose pale shirt stained with dirt at the sleeves. Her hair was done in elaborate braiding that bounced against her back with every stride made by her steed, and her attention was fully upon the two of them as she neared.

The horse she rode was white, as white as the clouds in noon-day skies, save for patches of rich copper that covered the horse's ears. Tall and powerfully built, the horse had a sense of regality about it that Aurora recognized immediately.

"That's the faery steed!" Aurora pointed out even though she was fully aware Maleficent could see as well as she and had probably known before Aurora. "Does that mean …?"

"I would rather not guess, Beastie." Maleficent's voice was curt, crisp as the bite of an apple. "Shall we go to meet her?"

Aurora, ever eager for more company, rushed forward as soon as she felt permission granted. She took three steps before she stopped and tried to look as welcoming as possible, and to wait for Maleficent to catch up. If the woman rode a faery steed and Aurora saw no iron bridle, the woman must be some sort of friend to the Fair folk. She hoped.

The faery steed nickered a greeting, slowing into a brisk trot; cooling down from what looked to have be a long, hard-pressed ride from the sheen of sweat at his flanks. The woman dismounted in one smooth motion and allowed the horse to continue the rest of the way into the Moors. She waited right at the boundary stone, quiet and seemingly respectful as Maleficent took her time to look over the horse. She whispered a word and the horse continued onward while Maleficent strode to meet Aurora and then walked with the princess to meet the new arrival.

"My apologies for such an entrance, I know I am not the face you expect to see." The woman's voice was rich, though breathless from the ride.

"No," Maleficent agreed, "yet you might have news of those we do wait for?"

"That," the woman ran a hand along her hairline, "I do have. Though I am afraid most of it will not be pleasing to hear."

Maleficent pursed her lips and Aurora wondered what the woman meant. As she turned from the woman to look at Maleficent and back again, the woman took notice of her.

"Princess Aurora," the woman bowed low, her head ducked. She waited there a beat before rising. "I am called Idoya, and I apologize that our introduction will lead such unpleasant news." the woman had not yet stepped over the boundary, though she did not look fearful of the tall faery before her. Aurora felt that it would be impossible, Idoya was nearly as tall as Maleficent save for the horns. The woman had the build of someone who had spent their life outdoors and with their hands. Still, despite the gravity of the situation, Idoya looked like she would prefer to smile and share joyous news rather than somber announcements. "You may know my husband's name: Berend?"

"Is he well?" Aurora inquired, more than politeness prompted the question. She knew Maleficent's feels were lukewarm concerning the man, but she had found him approachable. Not to mention he'd risked himself along with Philip and Diaval to allow her to retreat to the Moors unhindered.

"He will be." Idoya answered with a nod of thanks to Aurora's inquiry. "As will your own attendant, Lady Protector."

"You speak of the raven Diaval?"

Idoya frowned, puzzled by that assumption. "I speak of a man called Diaval, does he carry a familiar with him bearing the same name? Berend told me little when he brought Diaval home and Diaval was not with ability to answer himself."

Maleficent's nostrils flared, her eyes widened a fraction. It was minute compared to the gasp Aurora uttered. "You may enter the Moors, Idoya," Maleficent turned on her heel, already striding back towards the trees herself. "and we will share bread, allow you to replenish yourself after your ride before you share your news."

"I …" Idoya came up short, only just barely touching over the line that still laid barren after the Wall's demolishing. She rethought her astonishment and nodded. "As you say, Lady Protector." She took the first step into the territory of the Moors and Aurora watched her much like she had observed Maleficent the first time Aurora herself entered the Moors awake and of her own mobility. Questions welled up in her mind, and she desperately wanted to compare experiences, but as Maleficent's strides brought her to the waiting Coille and away from the border; and Idoya's face was set with a carefully-set neutrality that rivaled Maleficent's own mask, Aurora guessed that right now was not the appropriate time to badger questions upon the newcomer - especially if the news she carried was unfavorable.

Maleficent walked several steps beyond the honor guard of Coille and turned to watch Aurora and Idoya. Keith was nowhere to be seen at the moment and before Aurora could inquire as to his absence, she caught the minute shake of Maleficent's head.

Idoya caught up at Aurora's side and went no further than she did when Aurora stopped. The woman let out a quiet exhale, short and quick, and Aurora found herself jealous. She had actually yelped the very first time she'd seen Balthazar. Not out of fright, but because he had been there where Aurora knew only a forest path had been moments before.

Balthazar stared at the both of them, and as he studied them, Aurora felt the forest behind that sightless gaze. She wondered if Idoya felt the same. Finally, the forest protector growled out his decision to Maleficent and stepped backward, the weapon at his side coming to rest upon the ground. The weight of the forest lifted, and the air felt easier on the lungs. He had passed judgement and allowed Idoya entrance.

"You will forgive the caution, I hope." Maleficent began, her voice a study in patience. She had resumed walking along a game trail that Aurora swore had not been there before that evening. "There have not been negotiations or arrivals to the Moors for at least a generation and the formalities are hazy in memory." Maleficent's gaze flickered to Aurora, and Aurora noted the exclusion of her own person from the formal apology.

So, too, did Idoya. The woman's eyes were almost black in the shadow of the forest but the gaze left her as soon as it had fallen. "The opportunity to ride a fairy horse and step into the Moors is more than enough to provide means of forgiveness, Lady Protector. I have not had such a journey even with the best bred of the Kingdom's horses."

"Fairy horses such as he do not take riders unwillingly." Maleficent inclined her head, her horns dipping downward momentarily.

"So the legends say," Idoya agreed as they passed under an archway of branches and came out to a flat outcropping that hung over one of the babbling brooks that fed into the rivers of the human kingdom. Aurora had been here only once before, and only in passing. The location felt designed, more than a natural formation. There was a definite border of stones smoothed from years of exposure, and there was a miniature post and lintel arch that doubled as a sturdy table, though no chairs were around it. Set out was a small basket, and small hollowed out wooden bowls that held water within them. Aurora spied the suspects who had placed the meal - curious Hedgehog-Fae peered out from underneath large mushrooms beyond the ruined stone walls, their eyes locked on the second human to ever walk the Moorland trails.

Maleficent waited for Aurora, and Idoya to seat themselves, and took position opposite them, her wings flaring out over the outcropping, and away from her body. The Coille fell into a loose ring around the stone wall, standing as an honor guard, obvious in their presence. The intent was clear enough: Idoya had been welcomed, but Maleficent knew better than to blindly assume good intentions.

As was custom, they ate first. The offer of food, and the acceptance of it was an unspoken promise of hospitality for the meeting. Aurora nibbled on honey-soaked bread and drank from the brook-water, but mostly watched the two adults with abandon. Or, rather, she watched Maleficent watch Idoya watch Maleficent in turn.

Maleficent was tense, as was her usual, but there was not the distaste in her gaze that Aurora had associated with both Philip and Berend. Maleficent kept up a wonderfully maintained mask that frustrated Aurora to no end, but there were signs that the faery shared the innate curiosity of the other Moor-dwellers - at least a tiny amount.

Idoya also shared the innate curiosity, and the same lack of concern that both Gemma and Berend displayed. Could Maleficent had been wrong about most humans fearing her? Aurora thought about Harvel and Yennifer, and while Harvel had been cautious, and there'd been that iron over the doorways, there'd not been disgust like what Aurora had seen in the castle itself.

After the meal came polite talk. Both women looked eager to step straight into the underlying reason why Idoya was there, but custom was custom and Aurora had learned in her months in the Moors that the fair folk loved their traditions - and that tradition had it's place among them.

"Fairy horses will not throw a rider, no matter how inexperienced, but you looked at home even without a saddle." Maleficent started, her voice measured.

"I would hope so," Idoya agreed. "My father put me in the saddle before I knew how to walk. Mama fretted that I'd grow up bow-legged and made sure I toddled along at her side as soon as I could keep balance. Just like I did with our girls."

"You work with horses?" Aurora asked.

"I am the Horsewoman for the Royal Stables. I breed them, train them, and train the riders to not be fools upon the backs of their steeds."

Maleficent raised a brow, interested. "Most horses native to these lands are stocky and small, yet the horses that carry Men are ...incredibly exotic."

Idoya leaned forward with the aura of excitement that surrounded someone passionate and in the presence of others interested (or at least politely asking information) in what they were passionate about. "Some of the breeds I maintain are the ponies; mostly for draft and pack work, and usually for selling at the village markets for our farmers; but our warhorses and hunters? Those are descended from the horses that the Iberian Auxiliaries brought with them when they came to Britannia with the Legions."

Maleficent flicked her gaze from Idoya to Balthazar, and he growled out a response. "These are the horses that bore the armies of the Iron Eagle?"

"Their descendants." Idoya took a long drink of water. "The one thing Romans perfected was warfare. Even their animals were bred for it, The breeds are hearty, resistant to disease, and well-tempered for the work they're expected to perform. Most ponies don't fare well in battle, or chasing down deer in the woods so my family's worked to introduce the traits of the Iberian bloodlines with the ones here. The result is a horse capable of handling our winters and mountains, and is powerful enough to carry a fully-armored man into battle."

Aurora tucked her cloak tighter about her. "How does one train horses for war? They don't seem like they'd really enjoy it."

Idoya looked her way, gentle and unapologetic at the same time. "With patience and a lot of trust." She turned back to Maleficent. "Which I think brings us to my presence here?"

"I believe it does." Maleficent acknowledged and what little cheer Aurora felt the meal had brought them disappeared in expectation of the fate of their friends.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to those who review. This last year has been nothing but stress and the times I feel like I shouldn't bother writing, there's a review that reminds me to keep going. As always, I hope you enjoy.


	17. Chapter 17

Worry settled on Maleficent's shoulders through the guise of fidgeting wings. Involuntarily her wings arched up along her shoulder blades, curved forward along her arms and swept back to their normal posture. It was habit from her childhood, the flex of flight muscles to remind her that she could easily slip away if the situation demanded it. When she had been stripped of her wings, the lack of assurance dug a furrow of anxiety into the pit of her stomach, and though she had trained for seventeen years to resist that gnawing pain - to prevent anyone from seeing it's weakness and exploiting it ever again - she could not bear to stop her wings from reacting as they pleased.

Idoya's eyes drifted to the motion, and in this lighting, their color matched the russet brown of her skin. The woman blinked, startled by some inner thought for she turned and dug into the pouch at her hip. Maleficent looked on, wary, as the horsewoman pulled out a familiar pendant.

"That's Diaval's!" Aurora gasped at her side, leaning as far as she could without spilling food or drink to get a better look at what Idoya offered. "Where did you get it?" She hovered near as Idoya dropped it into Maleficent's outstretched hand.

The feather itself was dirty, covered with flaking blood and filth that comes off simple enough with the gentlest of scratches from Maleficent's nails. The leather necklace was torn in two, the knotted back piece still tied together, suggesting that something or someone had yanked it from Diaval's neck. The magic still flowed through it thankfully, pulsing in recognition to Maleficent's own internal power. The faery lifted her attention from the trinket to Idoya across the way. "I second the Princess's question."

"Berend said it was Diaval's. Apparently the man lost it in the ambush -"

"Ambush?" Maleficent scowled.

Idoya blinked again. "I'm jumping too far ahead. Six days ago my husband came home and carried upon his shoulders the man called Diaval. With them was Enbarr -"

"Enbarr?" Aurora piped in. "Who is that?"

Idoya pressed her lips together, color quickening over her cheeks. "I … that is the name I gave to the horse who bore me here. Berend said he was of faery blood and well, I didn't want to call him simply 'Horse'."

"What does the name mean?"

Maleficent gave the princess a sidelong glance that translated to: not the time for such a question. Thankfully, Aurora picked up on the silent message and fell back into her seat with a quiet rush of exasperation.

Idoya looked about ready to answer Aurora's question, but must have decided against it, chastised by the look as well. "All three bore wounds suggesting a nasty skirmish which did not end well. Enbarr took three nights to recover and though Berend was awake and able to slowly move himself around the house, he did not have the strength to lash himself into the saddle and make the ride here." She considered a moment longer, "nor would I have allowed him to."

"And Diaval?"

"They struck at him with iron, believing him to be faery. Caught him under the ribs, blade went upward into the lungs - thank the spirits, and not down into the belly. We're fairly certain that the two lowest ribs were broken from the force and that his lung was punctured as well." She must have noticed the panicked look on both Maleficent's and Aurora's faces. "It's a serious injury, but survivable. My eldest, Isabel, keeps him asleep so he does not thrash about and upset the stitches or disturb the healing process. With luck, he would be awake by now and if there was no infection, on his way to a full recovery."

"And of your husband?" Maleficent did not find herself truly interested in the fate of the captain, but civility called her to be as mindful of his recovery as she would be of Diaval's.

"Concussion. They sliced through his sword-arm, though the leather saved him from losing the limb entirely." Idoya's expression dimmed as she spoke, as if the very act of acknowledging the severity of the injury turned it real.

"And what of the human Prince? You have not mentioned him yet."

"Taken by the bandits."

"He's held hostage? What are their terms?"

Idoya shook her head. "According to Berend after they disarmed him, they're not taking the Prince hostage, but returning him to his father to be far from your grasp and the grasp of those men you have ensorcelled."

Maleficent blinked, puzzled. "My grasp?"

"Mhm. They believed you bewitched the Prince to your bidding, and wish to wield him as a weapon against his own father…" here Idoya's speech died off, as if she didn't know the diplomatic way of continuing the conversation. The hesitation passed however. "They do not want you to murder a third king."

Aurora cut in. "Three kings? Who was the other one besides my - my father?"

Idoya gave the princess a sympathetic look. Maleficent assumed that being the Horse Trainer for the Royal Army, Idoya would have met Stephen - or if not through that professional setting, then through her husband as Guard Captain. "The death of King Stephen is attributed to Maleficent herself but the death of the previous king; King Henry -"

"What?" Maleficent's hand tightened, and the clay mug she held shattered into pieces. One of the larger sections sliced deep into her palm, but the sting was nothing compared to Idoya's words. "They assumed I convinced Stephen to kill the old king?"

"It's one of the strongest rumors surrounding you." Idoya, for her part, did not look as if she believed the idea held much merit.

"I cursed his only child!"

"In revenge after he broke the promise to make you his Queen."

"He spent sixteen years trying to kill me."

"After you ensured that the woman who stole your rightful place to never give him a true heir, you weakened her so Stephen would never feel happiness. Every common man knows the vengeance of the Fair Folk. An improper offering leads to curdled milk and sickened cows, what would a broken heart lead to?"

"Does everyone think that of Maleficent?" Maleficent startled at Aurora's voice. The girl was rarely still, but the times she did not fidget, she was as quiet as an owl's flight and she had moved closer as Idoya spoke until the warmth of her body seeped into Maleficent's side.

"Not everyone, I believe - but enough of the common folk do; enough of the kingdom to stir unrest should you be seen at the Princess's side if she chooses to undergo her Coronation Ceremony. There are many in the Twelve Families that will happily use you as a boogeyman to tear the kingdom apart. The common folk might have nothing to do with the politics of the realm, but when fields go untended and riots block trade and transport - it could swing the favor of noblemen who would be otherwise ambivalent to your untethered rule." Idoya addressed the last portion to Aurora. "I do not envy the position you are in, Princess."

Aurora tried to smile, the quirk of her lips more like a grimace. "It's all right."

But it wasn't all right. Something was unsettled in the way Idoya sat, and in the way that the Coille shifted in the background, their creaking language too soft even for Maleficent's hearing. There was something she missed. But what?

Idoya answered her unasked questions. "Prince Philip's father, King John, is very protective of his sons. His first wife, the mother of the two older brothers, passed away from illness twenty years back and while his current wife - Philip's mother - bore him a male heir as well but no other child… if something were to happen to the Prince or be implied to happen to the Prince …"

"Well, if he's returned then what's the harm?" Maleficent saw no reason to continue fretting over such a conversation if it had no merit. Let the bandits take the Prince home, he'd served … well, if she were honest, he served his purpose in distracting the hunters after Aurora. She thought it far better for him to return to his kingdom and hunt elsewhere for a bride-to-be. She might not know human politics that well, but she understood enough to reason why the Prince had come to the castle on Aurora's birthday.

"Ulstead noticed Stephen's declining health - hells, everyone noticed it. Even after you retreated into the Moors, threw up that thorn wall, Stephen descended into insanity and nearly took the kingdom along with him. Berend seems to think - and I agree with him - that should King John -"

"The Prince's father?"

"Mhm. If King John was to learn of even the softest whisper of your influence in any way concerning his only heir to his kingdom … he would march into the Moors himself to ensure that there'd be no chance you'd have to do to him what he believes you did to King Henry."

"His kingdom is nowhere near the Moors. Aurora's kingdom is between the Moorlands and this Ulstead." Maleficent still saw no need to rescue the Prince from an uncomfortable but apparent safe escort home. If she could admit one thing, it was that she was gladdened to have the boy as far from Aurora as possible - if only because she knew all too well the dangers of young besottment.

"A kingdom recently ran bankrupt from a foolish quest into the Moors, without a ruler at the moment and with only a young girl as current candidate - not to mention said child's association with you?" Idoya's gaze leveled out, and waited for Maleficent to piece together her implications.

It didn't take long at all. Maleficent's blood went cold, her wings pressed tight to her back, she arched herself defensively in her seat. It was one thing, she supposed, to have this distant, faceless human king furious with her - it was another thing entirely when said king proved to be a potential threat to Aurora. "What do you believe he'd do?"

"If I were honest, and I usually am - we're easy pickings. I don't believe the army would give resistance and the Twelve Families would probably abdicate to King John's terms provided that he honor the royal bloodline and Princess Aurora's claim to the throne. I don't know if he'll wed Princess Aurora to Prince Philip or oversee her wedding to one of the suitable sons of the Twelve, and then with his army, he could easily pressgang the kingdom into resuming the war on the Moors until he has you in iron shackles and that is merely one scenario I can think of. Shall I speak of the others?"

"No," Maleficent grimaced. "No, I understand." She should have ignored the pixies all those summers ago when they spoke of an intruder at the Pool of Jewels, then she could have remained hidden away from these baffling humans and their complex machinations to control one another whether it be on a scale of man over man or nation over nation. "Then you advise stopping these men that have the Prince?"

"I wouldn't have ridden Enbarr on tender wounds so quickly if I felt otherwise. I would have gone after them myself, but I am not a match for outlaws on my own and it is rumored you took out squads of soldiers by yourself."

"I want to come with you. If Philip's in trouble because of me then I can't leave him alone!" Aurora's hands clasped over Maleficent's wrist and she twisted herself so that she was half-forward, her eyes locked Maleficent in place. "Let me come!"

"Princess, they might have let my husband live, but it is uncertain if his arm will mend properly and your friend, Diaval, had yet to wake when I left. It is no place for you."

"But I want to help!"

Maleficent covered Aurora's hand with her own. Those blue eyes implored and pleaded, and were futile against the thought from greater harm being brought upon the girl. "Aurora -"

"You can't forbid me. If you refuse me going with you, I will go on my own as soon as you're gone!" Aurora yanked, but Maleficent held her firm.

"That is why Idoya will remain here to watch over you."

"I'll run away from her too!-"

"I am not remaining here."

Maleficent looked away from Aurora towards the other woman. "The Princess needs to be watched over."

"And I am certain that the tree warriors lurking in the shadows will do a spectacular job in doing just that, but you need a guide to where the ambush was - and my job is in the saddle, not tending to girls."

Maleficent frowned. She looked up to where the Coille waited, their forms shadowed by the trees they came from. She felt uneasy leaving Aurora only with the Coille and Keith, and did not want to give voice to why she felt that way, to either Aurora and Idoya, or herself. Still, Idoya was right; it was foolish to ask her to remain here with the Princess. Not only would it mean a human wandering through the Moors without Maleficent's supervision, but it would take Maleficent far too long to track down Philip and do it in a manner that wouldn't draw overt attention to herself.

"Aurora -"

Again, Aurora cut her off. "Maleficent. Please. He's my friend."

"And you're to be our Queen," Idoya stood up, her hands brushed along her breeches and she looked down upon the two of them. "That means, Princess Aurora, that your very wellbeing; your health and body are worth more than gold. Even though the Twelve are a gaggle of scheming, slithering snakes ready to self-devour themselves and each other for scraps of power, they can do little as long as someone has a true claim to that throne. You might be pawns in their plans, you might become little more than a figurehead, but it is your presence that keeps the common folk content, your judgement that decrees laws over the land. You provide stability simply by existing, and right now, this kingdom needs you more than your want to go after your friend." Idoya softened her words. "I know how you feel, though, and sympathize."

Aurora turned from Maleficent, shoulders tensed as she glowered at Idoya with all the rage of a teenaged girl denied justice. "How could you? All my life I've been told to stay places. I couldn't leave the clearing, I couldn't leave the forest. I couldn't leave the castle, and now I can't leave the Moors. I don't care what I'm worth."

"About a year or so before King Henry decided to lead his assault on the Moors, we had some complications with the coastal villages being raided by pirates - never did figure out where they hailed from, strange language and they were masters of the ship and axe - where was I?" Idoya shook herself from the musing. "Ah, well, I'd just earned my Journeyman's papers and Berend was in a light cavalry unit, scouting more than anything. He and I used to patrol together as some of my tasks were to ensure their horses were maintained on their excursions. Well, that year the raiders struck right before Harvest and I was halfway along carrying our oldest girl. I wanted to go with Berend to scout the latest skirmish - we'd never been separated through our careers before that. I couldn't though. I had to think of the babe growing in my belly over what my wants were, every though every fibre of my soul demanded that I ride with Berend's company." She grew pensive. "One of the worst winters that year too, do you remember it Lady Maleficent?"

Maleficent did. The air had chilled right after Samhain and hadn't relinquished to Spring until a fortnight after Beltane's blessed fires. Even the Moors, usually mild during the strongest of seasonal changes had been affected by winter's grasp that year. The pixies had taken it the hardest with their flowers wilting but every inhabitant of the Moors suffered somehow during that frost.

"Berend's horse took an axe and he took a sword on his left shoulder. Came home on a stretcher and I was certain he'd not make it past the fever and shaking." Idoya stooped a little, to bring herself and Aurora eye-to-eye. "I was a soldier's wife, and in the army myself - I knew what I'd signed up with when I found out I was pregnant; you must think of your kingdom as such."

Aurora's nose scrunched. "Like a child?"

"Mhm. And that child deserves you there for them over almost any and all ideals, desires, or wants."

Aurora worried at her lower lip before nodding. She took her hand from Maleficent's arm and tucked it around herself along with her other hand, her knees tucked into her body until she huddled there in her seat and watched the two of them. Maleficent's own chest tightened in guilty sympathy.

Idoya returned the nod, then straightened up again. "I'll wait at the boundary stone for you, Lady Maleficent so you may say your goodbyes." She glanced down to Aurora, then crouched once again. "Princess…" No response, Aurora's head was tucked into her knees. Idoya tried again. "Aurora?" That got a sullen shrug, and the two older women exchanged a glance over it. Idoya stood for the last time, inclined her head to Maleficent, then walked through the path that brought them here. Several of the Coille turned to escort the woman to the edge of the Moors.

That left Maleficent with the Princess in a mood she'd rarely seen on the young girl. She stretched out a hand, splayed her fingers over the delicate curve of Aurora's hunched form. "I will return with Diaval before you know it, Beastie."

"What about Philip?" Aurora jerked away from her touch, scooted until she was twisted further away from Maleficent. "I know you don't like him."

"What about Philip?" Maleficent cocked her head, removed her hand from Aurora's shoulder. "If Idoya and the Captain both speak the truth then he is enduring life a little under his royal station but is otherwise in no danger."

That prompted a quick look upwards, a scowl tugging at Aurora's mouth. "You're going to just send him home, aren't you?"

"I - yes, that is what I was thinking -" Aurora's scowl deepened. She scrambled off her seat and stood. Maleficent had only seen her this angry once before, immediately after realizing who Maleficent herself had been. The intensity of the anger puzzled her. She did not care for the boy as she did Aurora, but sending him home should not have prompted this. "Aurora?"

"For the past - I don't know how many - days and weeks you have kept a guard around me! When I was in the castle, I was never more than four feet away from someone commanded to look over me, or keep me in my room and I'd only be known as the Princess for … I don't know."

Maleficent kept quiet as Aurora lost her words. She believed that speaking at the moment would only trouble the girl further until Aurora finished her thought.

After a minute of silence, in which Aurora paced and fretted, her hands clenching and unclenching, Aurora spoke again. "Everyone is constantly concerned that I need guards, that I need to be protected because I'm to be Queen. Idoya said herself that my life was worth more than any ideal, or want, or desire, right?" She looked, hard, at Maleficent, until the faery nodded. "Then why did Philip come here alone? With no guard watching him and making sure his life - which is worth more than ideal or want or desire - is protected? If his father, a King who has only one heir to his throne, sent him here, where is his guard and why hadn't he gone back yet? Proper customs for honoring a dead king? When I am certain Berend himself knows them well as he saw the death and succession of my grandfather?" Aurora shook her head. "Something isn't right." She captured Maleficent's gaze one final time. "Something isn't right, and you know it." With that, she turned sharp on a heel and marched off in the opposite direction of Idoya, deep into the woods where the Rowan Tree stood.

So much for goodbyes.

* * *

A/N: Yes. I know I am terrible with updating, but as today is the anniversary of the movie I had to get this chapter out. Once again, thank you so, so much to those that review. It is truly you that keep this story going as without them, I feel like I'm writing for the air and with all the stress of school, the air is not enough to sustain the passion. A thousand times, thank you


	18. Chapter 18

Aurora regretted her choice to properly say goodbye to Maleficent the very moment the faery left the Moors; she had never been in the faery wilds without their Protector and it grew obvious that Maleficent was no longer within the boundary stones. Aurora had watched from atop one of the high craggy clifftops, her eyesight nowhere near that of Maleficent's, but still able to make out the two riders that thundered toward the main road that led inward, to the castle. The sunlight receded behind them as they plunged into the ominous oncoming of the night until all that remained was the afterimages of Aurora's imagination.

Without Maleficent, the Moors lost a measure of vitality. Though Aurora watched as the rustle of wind through the low-lying trees and storm nyxs floated lazily through the air currents between the massive outcroppings of rock, the land turned bereft and grieving. The melancholy spread through the Moors, and Aurora finally grasped the meaning of what it meant to feel 'blue' though it was from a distance, like a low-lying fog that one could study from behind a window pane. There had been only one other time the feeling touched Aurora's heart and left a print that felt like a bruise, only to vanish in the wake of the sticky black that Aurora associated with anger.

She knew, from her instruction with Keith, and the time with Philip; that her time of running free ended the morning of her sixteenth birthday, that her royal lineage meant constant guards and giant chains wrapped around her body. She felt more and more that this was a life she'd rather not live, but to make that choice would be to hurt more people than she felt her freedom merited.

Hadn't the kingdom suffered enough just from her existence? Caught in the middle of a one-sided war led by her father she'd seen the results of those sixteen years on both trips away from her forest home. Gemma's village, the disjointed conversations at the festival that Philip guided her away from even though she'd wanted to listen in if only to understand. Sixteen years of her father's madness, and guilt welled up in her throat as she wished desperately that she wanted to throw it all away. She felt obligated. She'd never felt obligated before the moment someone titled her Princess - found herself happy to spend her days wandering the woods and laughing with the faeries in the Moors and now, with a simple birthday and decree of title, the feeling stuck like a stubborn bur on her dress. Not to mention; what would Maleficent think? The Protector of the Moors had promised Aurora that she would willingly take the Princess deep into the fairy wilds so no human could ever lay eyes upon her, and Aurora believed her, but would Maleficent look upon her differently? Would it cause another struggle that everyone would suffer through but Aurora herself?

She needed a distraction. As the shadows of Maleficent and Idoya disappeared into the distance, Aurora turned to stare into the depths of the Moors. A creak from the undergrowth to her left - one of the Coillie she did not know by name or tree stood there in the mottled light, still save for the gentle bow of it's head toward her. Aurora returned the gesture with a half-thought before heading back down the precarious path toward solid ground. Around her the night flashed with a thousand fireflies.

She walked past the wallerbogs who stared up at her with muddy eyes and sorrowful frowns. They called only once for her to join them, to share in another mud fight that would chase away the gloom of Maleficent's departure but Aurora shook her head. She had a destination in mind. Keith wandered along the edge of the Moors where the rivers seeped into wetlands, and she found him as he bent over a crumbled stone that had the same writing as the large boundary stones. He didn't say anything as she approached but turned and listened to her when she asked him to continue the lessons, and to not leave anything out.

* * *

Aurora stopped walking when the trees around her lost that sense of otherworldly awareness and the soft fairy lights were only motes of glimmering jewels that peeked through the branches far at her back. Three nights after Maleficent and Idoya left to tend to Diaval, Philip, and Berend, Aurora discovered that living out in the wilderness came with a level of unavoidable wear and tear on her clothes. Maleficent's composure must have been a faery thing, but Aurora had none of that mystical power. So, after a long afternoon of drills and lessons with Keith where her mind filled with the history and political spiderwebs that she would be thrown into once the month ended. After Keith suggested they stop for the night, Aurora had left the Moors despite the disapproving noise from Balthazar. Now she stood in the part of the forest that sheltered her old cottage. Her senses tingled, heightened already from the short lessons of Balthazar. She could sense rather than see the quiet shadows of the Coillie that followed her at a fair distance beyond the boundary. The Coillie didn't seem to want to announce their presence and that was all right, she didn't want to interact with them. Not right now, and the further she walked from the Moors, the further they hung back as if they were bound to a certain distance from that magical land without explicit orders from Maleficent.

The cottage stood dark and desolate in the center of the clearing, the sharp slant of the roof rough from days of neglect. It had been Aurora's chore to make sure the thatch was secured and doubled up for the summer storms and even the short time she'd been away, the cottage was already giving way to the forest around it. Aurora had half-dreaded, half-hoped that she would discover it lit up and dripping with the personality of her Aunties. Knotgrass would be inside, just beyond the open door and hard at work bent over another dress all while she complained that Aurora was growing far too fast for any sensible creature. Just beyond her, Thistlewit would be at the stove, busy with her latest idea for dinner - as long as it wasn't spiders - Aurora smiled with the memory.

Aurora closed her eyes and let her imagination run away from her, she could hear the bubbling song that Flittle always hummed whenever she checked on the animals one last time before it was too dark for the lanterns to do much more than spill gold over the cobblestone path back indoors. And where would Aurora be in this daydream? She tapped her fingers along her chin, then decided on the upstairs window, tucked into the corner that let the last rays of the sunset linger on as long as possible before the night crept into the clearing. She'd have her elbows on the sill, watching Flittle tend to the evening duties and waiting for the tell-tale flapping of bird's wings that announced the two visitors to the clearing Aurora looked forward to most.

Aurora's eyes opened to the empty quiet around her. She allowed herself a long, wistful sigh and then tucked the memories away. She would be more productive collecting some clothing she could take back into the Moors so her outfits weren't dependant on the sensibilities of the Coillie, or any other messenger sent out here. She walked past the empty pens where the animals used to live and wondered briefly what happened to them. She hoped they'd found new homes, Gemma's village wasn't too far a walk for them, was it?

The thought occupied her as she wandered through the empty kitchen and past to the stairs that led up to her attic room. A light layer of dust rested upon everything and stuck to Aurora's hand as she balanced herself up the twisted, steep steps, lifting up a lantern left on the table between the kitchen and the front room where Knotgrass liked to weave. There was still oil in the bottom and soon enough Aurora's passage was illuminated. Up in her room, she took in the meager possessions as the light fell over them. Several books stacked into a corner that Knotgrass had purchased from the market after Aurora begged and begged for them. Now that she knew her Aunties had not been real aunties at all, she was slightly curious as to how the pixies had managed to teach her letters and how to read. Was it by luck of faery magic, or had they known themselves? Had they taught themselves, ordered by the King to tutor her? Keith mentioned that had she lived at the castle she would have indeed been taught the basics - most suitors found an educated wife pleasant company - and if her father had not sired a male heir (as was the case now) it would be a healthy foundation on which to teach her the art of rulership (which was the case now).

Trinkets given to her by Diaval before she knew him as anything other than pretty bird shared the mantle of her bedside alongside various birthday gifts from the years that her Aunties remembered. Long shawls of fabric draped over her bed and along the wall to give the room an airy, open vibe as the wind lazily swept through and plucked at them like strings, and along the far wall rested the trunk that held most of her clothing - dresses and skirts and long tunics that could be belted along the waist for when the days were far too hot for any fabric below the knees. Aurora gathered several of each and set them upon a cloak she'd spread over the bedsheets to bundle around them. Opposite the high window that looked out over the front garden, the ladder up to the roof was partially covered with the more recent summer clothes, linen and not yet dried from the bark and berry mixtures Flittle whipped up. On Aurora's sixteenth they'd been set there to dry without the sunlight sapping the colors early. She took some of those as well, they would suit her during the longer days.

"Drat, forgot the twine," she murmured as she tucked one end of the pale grey fabric over the other. A quick sweep of the room and nothing, though she remembered that there was some downstairs, nestled around the parchment packing that came from Knotgrasses' last trip to the markets. That should be enough to secure the cloak so the clothing didn't fall out on the journey back into the Moors. She grabbed the lantern and made her way downstairs.

It was around the sixth step down when she realized that something wasn't quite right with the silence of the woods around her. The crickets had stopped singing, and even the reliable calls of the barn owls were missing. A thickness rose in the back of her throat as hoofbeats sounded down the slender, overgrown path that her Aunties cursed every other year when they needed to take the wagon for supplies. Aurora extinguished the lantern and set it down on the bottom step - then turned and hurried back upstairs, the twine forgotten. Back in her room, she tugged down one of the sheer shawls and makeshifted it into a sash around the cloak. She went to the window.

A company of soldiers wearing the black of her father's old guard but bearing an insignia she'd not seen on any of the castle guards made their way up the path, a wreath of ivy around a slender sword. In the moonlight, Aurora counted ten of them, each on horseback, and each carried a weapon that caused Aurora to shiver - they meant business.

"Well, I'll be damned. I've crossed this stretch a hundred times and never saw this," the lead rider pulled up just short of the cobblestone pathway. He tilted his head back to stare up at the attic window. Aurora ducked down, heart in her throat. Had he seen her?

"That's because humans aren't meant to see what we don't want them to see," that sounded like - Aurora risked looking out the window again, and while she sworn she'd heard Knotgrass, she couldn't see her Auntie. She watched the lead rider turn to stare somewhere in the air to his right and when Aurora followed his gaze, there hovered a smaller version of her eldest Aunt, the scowl and impatient mannerisms all too familiar even in a size far too small to house such a personality.

"I didn't ask for lip you little -"

"Now, Samson. That is no way to speak to our guide," The second unknown male voice came from the back of the column of riders. As the riders turned as one to the speaker, Aurora gambled to stare a little longer at the intruders in her front garden. The speaker rode a horse that gleamed white in the moonlight and the torches danced orange over it's flanks. Like Berend, his skin was darker than Aurora's own, though not by much. It was the shade of a fawn's winter coat, dusky tan in the firelight. He was tall, and did not wear the armor that the other riders did. Instead, he wore clothing that reminded Aurora of the gaping nobles in the castle, and on his shoulder he wore the same insignia that the others did. "My apologies, Lady Knotgrass, Samson is not known for his manners."

Knotgrass sniffed and Aurora could picture the disdainful frown on her face as she spoke. "Yes, well, as I was saying: this place was blessed by Pixie Dust. You may only find it once the Pixie who enchanted it has led you there."

"Would iron cut through the magic?" The well-spoken man inquired, his hand dropped to his waist and his fingers fiddled over the hilt of his sword.

"No, Lord Asheweld, it is not a glamour but a suggestion." Knotgrass sounded smug, she enjoyed lording over people. "Iron can only pierce glamours."

"And the fae themselves, no?" Lord Asheweld mentioned, his tone so light that Aurora believed for a second that he meant it as an honest question, but then she remembered the net that fell over Maleficent's form, and the spears that burned red-hot as they jabbed into her flesh. A question like that … perhaps he had been one of her father's strongest supporters, but that assumption did not give her a good starting point to figure out why he was out here of all places.

"A-and the fae themselves, Lord Asheweld," Knotgrass admitted, her head bent low with the words.

"Such an interesting flaw," Lord Asheweld commented as he swung off his horse. He landed on the ground with a light thud and beckoned for the hounds to be brought to him. "It was the metal that led the Romans to such success - perhaps your world of whimsy simply cannot stand the progress of time?"

Knotgrass didn't answer that. She didn't need to, as the Lord's attention was taken by the hounds that approached. They sniffed at his hands, tails wagging as they greeted their master. Knotgrass spoke up again, the subject changed. "Why are we here, Lord? I - none of us have been back since Aurora woke."

"The cloak you presented to us reeks of soot, and the dogs cannot pick a scent from the fabric. If we are to find the Princess before that horned devil returns, we need an accurate trail." He stared at her, eyes cold even though they gleamed against the torchlight. "She did live here with you, no? For sixteen years?" At Knotgrass' confirmation, he lifted his stare up to the house. "Then we'll find a suitable scent for the dogs to read and hunt that into the Moors if we have to. Whatever resistance we find should be made negiable with you as our escort." His voice was light.

Aurora slammed back down into the dark attic, body pressed tight to the wall. They were going to hunt for her? Is that why Maleficent was led out of the Moors? But Idoya had mentioned Diaval directly?

No! She couldn't suspect Idoya. Or Berend. Maleficent did, but that suspicion was grown years before Aurora was even born. Aurora needed to trust that the humans in her life were not all like her father. That meant worrying things about herself not just from heritage, but from simple truths of the species she was part of.

The sound of footsteps startled her and quickly reminded her that now was not the time to lament what-ifs. Would the Moors fight for her if these men came in with Knotgrass? Was that preferable to them allowing it without fuss - could she handle more people suffering simply because she was alive somewhere?

"Send the dogs in," Lord Asheweld commanded and Aurora was out of time. She would be caught here, or hunted later. She paced in her room. Her mind ran panicked. She'd promised Maleficent she'd remain inside the boundary!

Her eyes fell onto the discarded lantern, still warm from earlier use.

Hadn't that Lord mentioned that the dogs could not pick up a scent from her charred clothing? But all of her memories here! Her clothes, her toys, her Aunties places -

"_You might even convince seven of those would-be kings to leave the Moors alone if Aurora remained here … I am certain the faery Maleficent can bring the Wall of Thorns up once again and shield you; but at what price would your freedom cost the Moors?"_

Berend's voice echoed off the walls around her. Aurora made her choice. As the front door swung open, she lit the lantern and threw it hard against the downstairs wall, towards where the excess thatch was being kept for roof repairs. Dried out from being indoors away from the elements, the straw lept into a strong blaze, devoured by the flame.

Excited, confused shouts rose up beneath her. Aurora turned back to her bundled cloak, tied the sash around it as tight as possible, and took it with her as she ran past the bed to the ladder that led up onto the rooftop. Already the downstairs was filling with smoke.

"Find me something!" Lord Asheweld bellowed, his voice drowned under the frightened neighing of the horses. "Now, before it's all smoke!"

Aurora took in a gulp of fresh air as her head poked up through the hatch. She scrambled the rest of the way. The roof was steep enough that she could slide down it - the straw biting into her hands - and reach the bottom within seconds. She tossed the cloak down first, then waited, her breath caught in her throat.

She didn't move again until the large shuddering beneath her signaled that the men moved into her childhood home to steal something before it was lost to the fire. She used their movement as disguise for her own and dropped gracelessly onto the grass - a sharp pain jolted through her ankle. She jerked her head up, body low to the grass, and waited again. No shouts. No raised alarm that she'd been spotted. If she wanted to flee, this was her window.

She went to her feet. Looked into the forest that had sheltered her all her life. And ran.


	19. Chapter 19

Still hesitant from the last confrontation that Aurora stormed away from, Maleficent remained quiet for quite a while. The pounding hoofbeats filled the silence that Idoya seemed just as unwilling to break, either from the correct assumption that Maleficent didn't want to speak, or because of her own reasons. Regardless, the ride was thick with tension. The wind snapped through Maleficent's wings, drawing a chill around her that only furthered her foul mood. Her horse read the distress of his mistress for his usual smooth gait was distressed, rocking from side to side as he fed off of Maleficent's own temper; already hot-headed, he began to rebel and fuss, which fed back into Maleficent's foul mood. It was Idoya who called the first leg of their journey to a standstill, suggesting that they allow the eager stallion time to calm down.

Maleficent knew that Idoya meant her, but the Iberian woman never once glanced crossly her way as she brushed away sweat from Enbar's coat. The proud faery horse had demanded that he be allowed to accompany the women despite his wounds and need for rest. He felt guilty for allowing the attack to happen, and quite honestly, he was their only lead to where the attack took place. Though Idoya seemed focused on scrubbing away what little grime accumulated on the proud stallion, Maleficent could sense the bubbled need to speak. She waited out the Iberian, fingers tapping along her staff until Idoya sent her another sideways glance.

"She won't be mad at you for too long," Idoya paused in her movements just long enough to make sure Maleficent heard her. It was another long stretch before Maleficent allowed her the knowledge that she had indeed heard her.

"It is arrogant to assume what she will feel," Maleficent countered. Away from Aurora, her voice gained a measure of superiority and steel, a defense mechanism that brought her to lofty, haughty heights - untouchable by human cruelty or ignorance.

"Could be, but I've raised enough daughters and trained enough boys to know how the young mind works -"

"Aurora is not my daughter," Maleficent said brusquely. "There is no filial obligation that she needs to fulfil thus your observations do not apply to this situation."

Idoya continued as if Maleficent hadn't interrupted her, " - and I've had enough friends in dangerous situations to know that she'll come to understand why you chose as you did. If the Princess carries anything of her mother in her bones, you'll both reach an accord."

Maleficent scowled at Idoya's profile. Her wings fluttered restlessly against her shoulders - agitation never sat well on her, or within her. It rolled in her stomach like a stone, and made her arms tingle like she stood in the middle of a lightning storm.

Idoya patted Enbar on the shoulder and gestured over to Maleficent's steed. "I think Ruarc's ready to behave now."

The young stallion, grey with a dash of white over his chest and face, whickered in response. He danced, fore hooves pawing the ground as Maleficent approached him, and he took her restlessness and fed it into the ride, Enbar and Idoya a horse-length behind as Ruarc honored his namesake and ran like he raced a storm itself.

It was six or so miles beyond the far fields that surrounded what Maleficent deemed 'Gemma's Village' before she called the next rest. She did not use the horses as an excuse, they were both descended from the original Enbar, a tireless champion who outraced waves and ocean squalls, and would take after their grandsires endurance. Instead, she pointed out the pallor in Idoya's cheeks, a strange blanching that turned the woman's skin tone somewhat grey, and mentioned that she'd watched the woman's head bounce against her chest thrice from exhaustion. She deliberately went for blunt honesty, to regain some of the social face lost in the last conversation, but Idoya merely shrugged.

"You're probably right. I'm not as young as I used to be and I haven't ridden for as long a stretch as this since my last deployment along the southern border marches." Idoya stared forlornly behind them at an inn whose lights still blazed even from the distance they were at. She let out a wry chuckle and guided Enbar off the road and down a dirt-weathered path through the wheat fields. Maleficent followed at a fair distance, wary to Idoya's motives. "Anyone with a field this far out of town is going to have a small shed set up so they don't have to trek all the way home during harvest. Less time travelling, more time bundling the grain to get the first bite at the market vendors."

Sure enough, the small shadow of a rickety building stuck out from the pale silver of wheat like a sore. The door hung off a hinge, and there were several holes from inclement weather, but it would serve as a shelter for Idoya for the night. The woman ducked into the building as soon as she dismounted, and the horses were happy to explore their surroundings and waded through the sea of grain without difficulty. They wouldn't need tending to for quite some time.

Maleficent moved to follow Idoya into the shed, uncomfortable with risking exposure if she remained out for the night. Her foot crossed the threshold when Idoya yelled out for her to stop. She did, and with an arched brow, silently demanded an explanation.

Idoya shoo'd her backwards, three or four feet. "Stay." She paused, reconsidered her words. "Please. Just, stay there a moment."

Maleficent drew herself up to full height. She glowered as Idoya disappeared back into the shed only to deflate with understanding once the woman returned carrying four scythes, two under each arm. Idoya set the tools carefully against the outside wall, underneath an overhang that likely provided shade during the day.

"I didn't know how close you could get before iron affected you; or if you could even enter with them in there. Figured not to risk it, and the night's clear enough that they shouldn't rust from rainfall." Idoya wiped her hands clean along her pants. "Should be clear now. Place is mostly sparse - probably not in use yet, not close enough to harvest to waste leaving anything worth more than old, dull scythes around." She spoke with her hands braced on her hips, peering into the shed's interior. "Right, I'm looking forward to a nap. Are you taking first watch?"

Maleficent could only nod.

Morning arrived as meek as a lamb. The sun crested over the horizon with a dazzling display of color that washed the wheat in shades of gold. The sky was clear, and what dew had condensed in the early hours dried up by the time the sun crept fully into the sky. Idoya woke not long after on her own accord. Her grumbled protest at the lancing light that pierced through the slats alerted Maleficent to her waking. The faery had spent the night just inside the door, one foot resting out in the open, eyes on the fields and the town beyond, then even further to the forest that felt too far away. The horses dozed in the wheat field, having made designs on the grain by their passing through the night.

"Are you hungry?" Idoya asks, drawing Maleficent out of her thoughts.

"No."

"Sure? I think I have a wrapped honeycomb in here."

Maleficent couldn't stop herself before her head turned at the mention of sweets. She glowered. Idoya grinned. The honeycomb was sweet on Maleficent's tongue.

That first full day of riding was still filled by silence, but it no longer felt like tension driven into Maleficent's body like links of iron. Instead it's just there, a third companion on the journey. Maleficent's time is spent on Aurora and forgiveness, and what it meant to question the Coilie who had been there eons before her, and would most likely still be there long after she has gone. Once again, Idoya doesn't break the silence. It sets the theme for their travel as one day turned into two which turned into three. They spend the days bent low over the horses, racing towards a goal that's outstripping their reach every passing hour. They spend the nights split between sentry watching (on Maleficent's part) and restless sleep on Idoya's part.

It's the fourth day, a clear morning about to be lost to the heat of a muggy afternoon underneath an approaching grey sky that Enbar finally arrives at the ambush site where Berend and Diaval were wounded. The cultivated fields and villages of the central plains of the Kingdom gave way to an eastern barrier of woods, though these trees weren't the overgrown wilds of the Moorland outskirts, but rather an orderly garden of birch, pine, ash, and oak. The trees stretched out boughs high above their heads, a maze of leaves that spilled dappled light over them like raindrops that threatened to fall. The path here was neat, a wide expanse of cobbled stone that was well maintained. Grooves were worn into the stone itself from years of wagon travel, and along the edges were established lampposts that supported dark, empty cages that were too heavy to swing in the weak wind that blew through the woods. _Riversborough_, according to a sign, was a mile up the road.

"Riversborough?"

"They're a Waystation on this side of the King's Forest," Idoya explained. "They mark the northern border of the woods, and Aldon's on the far side - marking the boundary between here and northern Ulstead."

"I though Ulstead was to the south of Aurora's kingdom?"

"Most of it is. A century ago, King Edward pushed north into Aldon and claimed a section of the coastline for Ulstead. It's a small strip of land, only thirty miles separating the river from the eastern coastline, and it's a sore spot of contention for the two Kingdoms - don't let the talks of peace convince you otherwise. If Stephen had not held such a vendetta against you and the Moors, he would have pushed to reclaim these woods."

"What makes them so vital?" Maleficent studied the tamed growth as they passed it by.

"Well, beyond the Royal Castle, Aldon nestles at the mouth of the river, and is the second best port to deep-sea fish for cod and salmon. Riversborough is a trade town, it makes money on the traffic that runs down the King's Road here," Idoya gestures to the wide, smooth road they've been on for the past day. It was cobbled, the stones worn flat from centuries of use. "It's east enough that the snows don't block passage in the winter and the summer storms don't flood it out like the western lowlands tend towards."

Maleficent nodded once, then turned upon her horse to stare around them once again. "Did Berend say why they were travelling east? The Moorlands are west and north. Was Philip already returning to his kingdom?"

"Berend didn't say. Only that we needed to reach Philip as fast as possible before he was returned to his father."

Maleficent watched as orderly pine and oak gave way to rows and rows of apple trees that hung heavy with fruit ready to be picked come the last days of summer. Life stirred in the wood. Here, a deer bounded without care close enough to an orchard worker that the man could reach out a hand to brush the animal's fur. As if Idoya could follow her thoughts, the woman began speak.

"This is the Forest of Kings, the middle land between the river that divides us from Ulstead, and the open plains. It's governed by Lord Cananach, one of the Twelve. His family has long held the rights to the trade that passes through and as it lends profit to both Ulstead and Teorann."

"Teorann?"

"The name of Aurora's soon-to-be kingdom. It means -"

"Border, yes. Are they referring to the Moorland?"

Idoya shrugged. The two walked slowly underneath the opening canopy. The orchards demanded space from the kings of the trees and so the royal crown of leaves disappeared in the face of ordered civilization. "It's where the Romans made their stands against the Picts up north. The Legions could never get beyond the eastern foothills and the Moors were impossible to breach."

"The Tuatha de Danann still roamed the lands then, before the battle with the Milesians." Maleficent remembered that from her history lessons as a child. "Though we could not push the Iron Eagle south beyond Eboracum."

"The fortress the Romans established? Aurora's castle stands on the very hill. Some of those stones were a part of the first wall that divided your people from mine." At the look directed her way, Idoya grinned. In profile, the curve of her lips was sharp, like a hook. "When the girls could not get to sleep some nights, Berend would read to them about the history of the kingdom before he became Guard Captain."

"Did Berend know the type of man Stephen was?"

Idoya turned to face Maleficent fully. "I'm not sure what you're asking."

"Your husband, the oath he gave to his king? Did he know the type of man he was pledging himself to?"

"Stephen was a hero at the time, praised by the soldiers and admired by the common folk to have reached a height that none thought possible to strive towards. It was an honor to align oneself to the new king -"

"He was no king-"

"He vanquished the Beast of the Moors that slaughtered over three hundred men and left that many families without a son, a brother, a husband, or a father."

"King Henry attacked without provocation! I defended my home!" Maleficent rose up in her seat. She could not loom over Idoya as she could if they stood on the ground, but she was still a force to be reckoned with with wings spread and horns raised up in challenge.

"King Henry was challenging the fair folk who had bewitched the fields to be barren for the past two summers," Idoya mentioned. Unlike Maleficent, her voice never rose beyond what was needed to be heard. "The farmers were growing angry, the nobles were grumbling at the lack of taxes, and on his eastern border was an Ulstead Army fattening itself on fish raided from our fishing boats. The Kingdom needed a scapegoat. Your Moorlands? Perfect fit." Idoya looked away. "King Henry did not realize how vigilant you were with the Moorlands' protection - or that any Aen Sidhe still existed. All of the other tales said that your people went west back to the Isles or up north."

"Most of the People went to the _sidhe_ when the division of the land was ordained. The rest went deep into the Moorlands to sleep until the morning comes that they can travel all the lands without contest." Maleficent thought back to the sleepers, the ones far north that dozed beneath canopies of ancient bones that belonged to creatures long lost to any memory. "I do not know how many of us are still here."

"Who aids you with protecting the Moors then?"

"The Coille, as they are made to do so. The roots themselves will also rise up in defense. There are a few of the young fair folk that will lend a hand."

"What about others like you?" Idoya steered them off the path when they grew close enough to Riversborough that the torchlight flickered along the dirt underneath the horses. She led the way down a game trail that smelled of fawns and opened up close-by a water mill. The giant wheel was half-rotted away, but the roof looked mostly intact and the interior was dry and large enough to support all four of them resting within for the night. Maleficent allowed the short detour to end the conversation thread before it spiraled further.

"The forest is rather ... " she frowned around her next word. "Tidy."

"It's a Deer Park now. Cananch's men tore through the forest, trampling the undergrowth and pruning away the trees until, well," Idoya gestured across the wide river toward the orderly span of trees that lined the other way. "It served, at first, as a way to cripple the banditry. Once the memories of the war cooled a bit, the woods weren't as welcoming to outlaws. By then, the lack of hunting gave the deer ample chance to fatten their population and Canach and… Teviotdale on the Ulstead noble line turned the woods into a noble's hunting ground. Beyond either King's men, only men bearing the colors of the two houses can hunt within the woods. Anyone else is deemed a poacher and hung for the crime."

"What crime?"

Idoya shrugged a shoulder. She dismounted Enbar and left him to wander the shoreline for a place to dip his head down for a drink. "Poaching."

"I do not understand the word," Maleficent elaborated her confusion. "What is so wrong about hunting for one's food? Or for hides for the coming winter?" As long as the humans respected the animals that they hunted and took only what they needed to survive, Maleficent could see no crime.

"Nothing, as far as I'm concerned; but in these woods, the deer belong to the King. Or, well, to the Princess now. To hunt them is to steal from the crown and that is punishable by hanging from the neck until dead."

"It is a foolish law." Maleficent nodded viciously with her statement and dismounted from Ruarc's back. The grey horse followed his counterpart to the water's edge to drink his fill. Behind her, she heard Idoya rustling in her pack for dinner that evening.

"After King Edward attacked, there was about thirty years of just back and forth sniping of caravans, or any laborer who attempted to remain neutral with the seizure of the Forest of the Kings. The lumber trade dried up and so the mill was shut down. I think we might need to worry only about young lovers sneaking down here for time away from chaperones, but you can frighten them off with a ward, right?"

Maleficent could, and so she did. She established a perimeter that would discourage humans from approaching the mill at all until the next sunrise. She explored the woods as much as she dared to without risking an encounter with a hunter, or a woodsman. When she returned to Idoya she took the chance to take a moment to herself and approached the river a few meters downstream from the horses. Here, she undid the cloak that covered her wings and allowed them to stretch wide. Enbar nickered and sidestepped her leftmost one, shooting her an affronted sidelong glare that suggested how inconvenient her relaxation was to him right then. She ignored him because he was a horse, and they always found everyone else to be a nuisance - and telling him to mind his manners would only result in time wasted and tempers lost from the resulting argument. Better to let them have their indignation.

"Rabbit sound good?" Idoya inquired. Maleficent waved a hand off to one side, and didn't wait to see the human woman's reaction. She settled down on the bank, and curved her wings forward. Then, much like she had done underneath Aurora's inquisitive gaze, she trickled water from her hands over the feathers and washed away the grime of four days on horseback. The ritualized movements are so familiar and yet still so novel to her that she doesn't notice the passage of time until Idoya called her title.

"Lady Protector?"

The forest was dark now save for the campfire that crackled in the shadow of the mill, on the far side away from town to prevent keen sight from picking it out. Over it, Idoya set several long sticks in which several cuts of meat from the rabbit caught in a snare that morning cooked. The pieces sizzled as the flames licked at what little fat there was and the pieces looked nearly done.

"I didn't want to interrupt you, but I don't know how well-done you take your meat. Or, well, if you eat meat at all? Do you?"

"I have no objections to eating flesh, no," Maleficent eyed the pieces again and admitted to herself that they did look rather tempting. Her stomach rumbled a soft agreement. A sharp glance went Idoya's direction to see if she'd heard but the other woman did not react. Instead, she pulled a leg from over the flames and stuck the stick outward, to let the meat cool. "Magic tends to require a hearty diet." She meant to leave the explanation at that, but Idoya looked at her with the same inquisitive openness that Aurora had, so she found herself eager to elaborate to an audience. "Other faeries draw their glamour from their environment. Storm Nyxes need open air and wind currents to remain in balance, and Wallerbogs cannot leave the marsh that bore them. However, mine is much like a fire inside of my body."

"I suppose it's similar to why you feed a fever. When you're burning up, you need to fuel the fire or it's going to consume you instead."

Maleficent blinked. Humans burned? "I … " She paused, displeased that there was yet another gap in her knowledge base and that she was about to reveal it in order to sate her own curiosity. "What is a fever? You mentioned it before, with regards to the Guard Captain."

Idoya grinned, apparently pleased that she knew something that the faery woman did not. Before Maleficent could respond to the teasing, the woman tore off a hunk of cooked rabbit and allowed herself an indulgence of a bite or two while Maleficent bristled. "Have you ever been sick?" Idoya asked, and laughed again at the affronted look on Maleficent's face. "Of course you haven't. Well, humans fall ill pretty easily and if the sickness is bad enough, the body starts to burn up. Now, if you go ask one of the clergymen that the nobles hire on, they'll tell you to pray and atone for whatever sin is causing the inferno in your soul but anyone who has ever had a lick of common sense," here, she bite off another piece, then pointed the leg at Maleficent to emphasize her point. "They'd understand that a fever's nothing more than the body trying to burn out whatever's causing you to be sick in the first place. Sensible people learned a long time ago that when a horse got feverish, they recovered a lot faster if their feed was increased during the sickness. Mothers started to do the same on their children and when babes survived illness that used to mean a visit to the local grave tender, we established it as a fact of life. Body's on fire, so in order to make sure that fire doesn't devour you - feed it something else."

Idoya paused in the middle of her third bite, and changed the subject. "Something's been bothering me for a bit."

"What?" Maleficent looked up from her own rabbit. Still rather warm, the meat was tender and easily tore from the bone. It was a luxury that she didn't want to spoil with more talk than was needed.

"The ambush site. It's rather close to Riversboroug. Close enough that the attack must have been noticed by someone from the town."

Maleficent considered it. "Close enough that your Guard Captain should have been able to seek aid there instead of risking a journey home to you - and if Diaval was in human guise, there would be no real risk of exposure."

"Mm, true. Which means that Berend didn't trust this place. But why?"

A twig snapped, and not from the fire. Maleficent's head shot up and Idoya's words died on the spot. They weren't alone. "I thought you established a ward?" Idoya asked, hand stretched out to seize upon her dagger that rested against the wall of the mill.

"I did. No human can breach it."

"What about humans already inside of it?"

The answer to that came from above. Up in the splintered rafters of the abandoned mill stood a woman bloodied and bruised. Her red hair matted with dirt and hay, her skin underneath the mottled coloring pale, and then even paler from obvious blood loss. She stood with all of her weight braced onto one leg, and even then, propped herself up against an overhanging beam to support her upright position. A crossbow was steadied in the woman's hands, the bolt's iron tip apparent even from a distance. It trained upon Maleficent herself, and the woman's finger rested against the trigger.

"Hands where I can see them. Faery - don't even think of casting a spell, I'm wearin' iron." The woman patted the crossbow. "Wielding it too, and I'm pretty sure you don't want to test if you can dodge a bolt from this distance."

Maleficent didn't answer. She only growled, and curled her hand tight around her staff while her wings curved backward and out, ready to take flight and test her reflexes against the bolt's speed. Idoya stopped going for the dagger when the woman tsk'd. "What do you want?"

"Your horses, for a start."

* * *

A/N: Yes, it's been a very long break. I began my first semester of my BSN Nursing Courses and found myself way too swamped to even focus on creative endeavors, then a car accident stole a lot of extra time from me as well. Regardless, here is the latest chapter. Read, review, and have a happy holiday season everyone!


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